Tulsa, OK Federal Housing Finance Agency Home Price Index (FHFA HPI)

The Tulsa, OK, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI) is a weighted, repeat-sales index measuring average price changes in repeat sales or refinancings on the same properties. The index was created to provide a more timely and accurate measure of house price trends than other existing measures.

The HPI value for any given quarter represents the change in house prices from the previous quarter, seasonally adjusted and annualized. For example, if the HPI for Tulsa, OK is 120.0 in Q1 2020, that means that house prices in Tulsa increased by 20% from Q4 2019 to Q1 2020 on an annualized basis.

The FHFA HPI covers single-family houses with mortgages owned or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The index includes purchase loans, first-lien refinance loans and second-lien refinance loans. It does not include home equity lines of credit (HELOCs).

The FHFA HPI is based on data from Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), which has been conducted monthly since 1971 and covers approximately 75 percent of U.S. mortgage originations each year. The PMMS sample consists of conventional conforming mortgages with loan-to-value ratios below 80 percent and terms greater than 15 years; these characteristics make them similar to those included in the Fannie Mae Single Family Mortgage Database used for the creation of the FHFA House Price Indexes prior to 2011Q3 . In addition to Freddie Mac's PMMS®, data from other sources are used when necessary to supplement gaps in coverage or data quality issues identified with particular lenders or regions within states . Data sources other than Freddie Mac's PMMS® currently used include:

* CoreLogic Home Price Index

* LoanPerformance Home Price Index

As of Q1 2020, the FHFA HPI for Tulsa, OK stood at 120.0, up 20% from Q4 2019 on an annualized basis. This represented a continuation of the upward trend in home prices that has been evident since early 2018 . On a non-seasonally adjusted basis , home prices in Tulsa increased by 2% from Q4 2019 to Q1 2020 .

Over the past year , home prices in Tulsa have increased by 11%. This is slightly higher than both the national rate of 10% and the regional rate of 9%. However , it should be noted that these rates are all well below their pre-recession peaks .

Despite these increases , home equity levels remain low by historical standards . According to CoreLogic , as of Q1 2020 homeowners with mortgages (i.e., those most likely to have negative equity) had only 30% equity on average nationwide ; this figure was even lower in some states such as Oklahoma . Low levels of home equity can make it difficult for homeowners to sell their homes or refinance their mortgages , which can help explain why many homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages despite rising home prices .