‘What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.’–attributed to Mark Twain
A lot of people believe that housing prices are falling.
While in certain specific markets this is true, it is also true that overall housing prices in the U.S. have not fallen since 2012. In the last quarter ended June 30, 2026, prices rose in 46 states and declined in only 4 states.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) publishes a quarterly report called the House Price Index Quarterly Report. This report provides price and appreciation data nationally, state by state and by city-by-city. This report presents hard data and goes beyond the anecdotal information reported in the media. The highlights of this report for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 are:
Housing prices increased in 46 states from the second quarter of 2025 through the second quarter of 2026, with the following states showing the highest annual appreciation (Alaska 8.3%, Vermont 7.3%, Hawaii 5.8%, Illinois 5.6%, West Virginia 5.6%). The four states where prices declined for the past year were (New Mexico -1.2%, Washington -0.9%, Colorado -0.5%, California -0.2%) although the declines were extremely small overall. Of course within a given state there may be specific areas with larger declines or increases since the data represents activity across the entire state.
The following chart shows the appreciation by state over the past year through June 30, 2025: (click on this link FHFA Qtr 2 Map.
The Housing Price Index provides price appreciation data for the past quarter, the past year and the past five-year period. The report also reports appreciation data from the first quarter of 1991 through the first quarter of 2025. Click on the following links for STATE DATA and CITY DATA
In the last 5 years the states with the highest appreciation are:
The states with the highest appreciation since 1991 are:
For Colorado, price appreciation was -.53% for the past four quarters. For the past five years, appreciation in Colorado was 15.97%. Since 1991 the appreciation in Colorado has been 574.35%, which is the third highest of any state in the country.
For the Denver Metro area, appreciation for the past year was -0.98%, and 12.36% for the past 5 years. Since 1991 the appreciation in the Denver Metro area has been 608.28%, which is the third highest among the largest 100 metropolitan areas in the country. Overall, housing prices rose in 76 of the largest 100 metropolitan areas over the past year.
The full report can be accessed HERE.
