U.S. home prices continued to rise in April, increasing 0.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis compared to March, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) monthly home price index (HPI).
Year over year, home prices were up 5.3% compared to April 2014.
As of the end of April, U.S. home prices were within 2.3% of their peak in March 2007, according to the FHFA.
It should be noted that the FHFA's HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As such, it is much narrower than the other indices such as Case-Shiller, in that it only looks at homes with a conforming mortgage.
Looking at the nine census divisions covered in the report, the East-North-Central division saw home prices decrease 0.8%, month over month, while the West-North-Central division saw prices increase 1.4%.
On a year-over-year basis, all nine divisions posted increases, according to the report.
In March, home prices rose a mere 0.3% compared to February, as previously reported by the FHFA.
Although the month-over-month increases have been relatively small during the previous six months, home prices nevertheless continue to edge upward.