RISMEDIA, October 11, 2010—As the U.S. housing market nosedived over the past decade, home prices in some cities improved, according to a report released this month by mortgage technology company FNC Inc. Senior FNC economist Yanling Mayer conducted the study using FNC’s new Residential Price Index and identified the top 10 U.S. cities with the greatest annual appreciation in home prices since 2003:
• Baltimore, 7% increase
• Seattle, 5.7% increase
• Washington, D.C., 4.5%
• Los Angeles, 3.8%
• Portland, 3.8%
• San Antonio, 3.2%
• New York, 3.1%
• Nashville, 2.8%
• St. Louis, 2.4%
• Columbus, OH, 1.3%
FNC’s study shows that the median U.S. price appreciation (for 60 MSAs) is up 0.6% annually over the past seven years, which positions the top 10 cities all above the national average.
FNC, a collateral management software company for the nation’s mortgage lenders and servicers, launched its Residential Price Index (RPI) in September. The index is the industry’s only hedonic model, which means it derives price trends using data from all properties within a community, not just from repeat-sale properties as other indexes do.
FNC is offering the RPI free, hoping it will be useful to banks, journalists, and government officials.
Visit FNC online at www.fncinc.com.