St. Joseph, MO-KS Federal Housing Finance Agency Home Price Index (FHFA HPI)

The St. Joseph, MO-KS, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI) is a weighted, repeat-sales index that measures average price changes in repeat sales or refinancings on the same properties. The index covers single-family homes located in the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) of St. Joseph, MO-KS and includes data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from January 1975 to present.

The HPI is a broad measure of home prices in an MSA and can be used to monitor trends over time for home buyers, sellers, homeowners, renters, real estate professionals and economists. The St. Joseph HPI value for 2020Q1 was 166.4, down 0.2% from 2019Q4 but up 2% from 2020Q1 last year (2019).

Home equity is the portion of a property's value that the owner has paid for with their own funds; it represents the owner's stake in the property. Home prices are constantly changing due to numerous factors such as inflation, market demand, housing starts and completions, interest rates, etc. As home prices increase or decrease so does home equity; when prices go up equity increases and when prices go down equity decreases.

In recent years there has been an increase in home prices across the U.S., which has led to an increase in home equity for many homeowners. According to CoreLogic's Home Equity Report for Q1 2020, U.S homeowners with mortgages (approximately 63%) saw their equity increase by $548 billion during Q1 2020 alone; this is the largest quarterly increase since CoreLogic began tracking home equity data in 2011! The report also showed that the average homeowner gained $15,300 in equity over Q1 2020 which was a 5% gain from Q4 2019 levels ($14 600).

There are several reasons why we have seen such large increases in home equity recently: 1) Rising home prices: as mentioned before, one of the main drivers of increased equity is rising home prices; 2) Increased mortgage payoff: another driver is increased mortgage payoff which occurs when homeowners make extra payments on their mortgage or pay it off entirely; 3) Mortgage debt consolidation: finally consolidating other debts into a lower rate mortgage can also lead to increased equity as well as lower monthly payments overall