Urban Honolulu, HI Federal Housing Finance Agency Home Price Index (FHFA HPI)

The Urban Honolulu, HI, 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 and condominiums. The HPI value for any given quarter is equal to 100 if the average home price during that quarter was equal to the price in the base period of January 2000. A value of 120, for example, means that home prices averaged 20 percent higher during that quarter than they did in the base period.

The FHFA HPI for Urban Honolulu peaked at 205.3 in the second quarter of 2006 and then declined steadily to a trough of 168.1 in the first quarter of 2011. Since then, it has risen modestly, reaching 176.8 in the fourth quarter of 2017. Despite this rebound from its lows, the HPI remains about 15 percent below its pre-recession peak.

Home equity is simply defined as the portion of a property's value that is owned outright by the homeowner; it can be thought of as a homeowner's "stake" in their property. In other words, home equity represents how much of your home you actually own—it's everything you would get if you sold your home minus any outstanding mortgage or other liens on your property.

For many Americans, their home equity serves as an important source of financial security and stability—it can act as a "rainy day fund" to cover unexpected expenses or be tapped into through methods like cash-out refinancing or home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) when additional funds are needed for major purchases or investments. Given its importance, it's not surprising that changes in home equity can have far-reaching effects on both individual homeowners and broader housing markets.

In Urban Honolulu specifically, rising home prices have helped increase homeowners' equity levels since bottoming out in 2011; according to CoreLogic data cited by Pacific Business News, the median homeowner had $168,000 in tappable equity at the end of 2017—up from just $57,000 five years earlier. This increase has been driven primarily by strong gains in house prices across Oahu; according to data from Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes cited by PBN, Oahu's single-family home prices rose nearly 50 percent between 2012 and 2017 while condo prices surged even higher—gains that have helped push many homeowners' equity levels well above where they were before housing values began plummeting during the Great Recession..