House prices grew year-on-year in most states in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2025. Hawaii was the only exception, with a decline of **** percent. The annual appreciation for single-family housing in the U.S. was **** percent, while in Rhode Island—the state where homes appreciated the most—the increase was ******percent. How have home prices developed in recent years? House price growth in the U.S. has been going strong for years. In 2025, the median sales price of a single-family home exceeded ******* U.S. dollars, up from ******* U.S. dollars five years ago. One of the factors driving house prices was the cost of credit. The record-low federal funds effective rate allowed mortgage lenders to set mortgage interest rates as low as *** percent. With interest rates on the rise, home buying has also slowed, causing fluctuations in house prices. Why are house prices growing? Many markets in the U.S. are overheated because supply has not been able to keep up with demand. How many homes enter the housing market depends on the construction output, whereas the availability of existing homes for purchase depends on many other factors, such as the willingness of owners to sell. Furthermore, growing investor appetite in the housing sector means that prospective homebuyers have some extra competition to worry about. In certain metros, for example, the share of homes bought by investors exceeded ** percent in 2025.

Graph and download economic data for Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States (ASPUS) from Q1 1963 to Q2 2025 about sales, housing, and USA.

Reference: https://www.zillow.com/research/zhvi-methodology/

Official Background

In setting out to create a new home price index, a major problem Zillow sought to overcome in existing indices was their inability to deal with the changing composition of properties sold in one time period versus another time period. Both a median sale price index and a repeat sales index are vulnerable to such biases (see the analysis here for an example of how influential the bias can be). For example, if expensive homes sell at a disproportionately higher rate than less expensive homes in one time period, a median sale price index will characterize this market as experiencing price appreciation relative to the prior period of time even if the true value of homes is unchanged between the two periods.

The ideal home price index would be based off sale prices for the same set of homes in each time period so there was never an issue of the sales mix being different across periods. This approach of using a constant basket of goods is widely used, common examples being a commodity price index and a consumer price index. Unfortunately, unlike commodities and consumer goods, for which we can observe prices in all time periods, we can’t observe prices on the same set of homes in all time periods because not all homes are sold in every time period.

The innovation that Zillow developed in 2005 was a way of approximating this ideal home price index by leveraging the valuations Zillow creates on all homes (called Zestimates). Instead of actual sale prices on every home, the index is created from estimated sale prices on every home. While there is some estimation error associated with each estimated sale price (which we report here), this error is just as likely to be above the actual sale price of a home as below (in statistical terms, this is referred to as minimal systematic error). Because of this fact, the distribution of actual sale prices for homes sold in a given time period looks very similar to the distribution of estimated sale prices for this same set of homes. But, importantly, Zillow has estimated sale prices not just for the homes that sold, but for all homes even if they didn’t sell in that time period. From this data, a comprehensive and robust benchmark of home value trends can be computed which is immune to the changing mix of properties that sell in different periods of time (see Dorsey et al. (2010) for another recent discussion of this approach).

For an in-depth comparison of the Zillow Home Value Index to the Case Shiller Home Price Index, please refer to the Zillow Home Value Index Comparison to Case-Shiller

Each Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) is a time series tracking the monthly median home value in a particular geographical region. In general, each ZHVI time series begins in April 1996. We generate the ZHVI at seven geographic levels: neighborhood, ZIP code, city, congressional district, county, metropolitan area, state and the nation.

Underlying Data

Estimated sale prices (Zestimates) are computed based on proprietary statistical and machine learning models. These models begin the estimation process by subdividing all of the homes in United States into micro-regions, or subsets of homes either near one another or similar in physical attributes to one another. Within each micro-region, the models observe recent sale transactions and learn the relative contribution of various home attributes in predicting the sale price. These home attributes include physical facts about the home and land, prior sale transactions, tax assessment information and geographic location. Based on the patterns learned, these models can then estimate sale prices on homes that have not yet sold.

The sale transactions from which the models learn patterns include all full-value, arms-length sales that are not foreclosure resales. The purpose of the Zestimate is to give consumers an indication of the fair value of a home under the assumption that it is sold as a conventional, non-foreclosure sale. Similarly, the purpose of the Zillow Home Value Index is to give consumers insight into the home value trends for homes that are not being sold out of foreclosure status. Zillow research indicates that homes sold as foreclosures have typical discounts relative to non-foreclosure sales of between 20 and 40 percent, depending on the foreclosure saturation of the market. This is not to say that the Zestimate is not influenced by foreclosure resales. Zestimates are, in fact, influenced by foreclosure sales, but the pathway of this influence is through the downward pressure foreclosure sales put on non-foreclosure sale prices. It is the price signal observed in the latter that we are attempting to measure and, in turn, predict with the Zestimate.

Market Segments Within each region, we calculate the ZHVI for various subsets of homes (or mar...

The average price per square foot of floor space in new single-family housing in the United States decreased after the great financial crisis, followed by several years of stagnation. Since 2012, the price has continuously risen, hitting ****** U.S. dollars per square foot in 2024. In 2024, the average sales price of a new home exceeded ******* U.S. dollars. Development of house sales in the U.S. One of the reasons for rising property prices is the gradual growth of house sales between 2011 and 2020. This period was marked by the gradual recovery following the subprime mortgage crisis and a growing housing sentiment. Another significant factor for the housing demand was the growing number of new household formations each year. Despite this trend, housing transactions plummeted in 2021, amid soaring prices and borrowing costs. In 2021, the average construction cost for single-family housing rose by nearly ** percent year-on-year, and in 2022, the increase was even higher, at close to ** percent. Financing a house purchase Mortgage interest rates in the U.S. rose dramatically in 2022 and remained elevated until 2024. In 2020, a homebuyer could lock in a 30-year fixed interest rate of under ***** percent, whereas in 2024, the average rate for the same mortgage type was more than twice higher. That has led to a decline in homebuyer sentiment, and an increasing share of the population pessimistic about buying a home in the current market.

Graph and download economic data for S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller CA-Los Angeles Home Price Index (LXXRSA) from Jan 1987 to Aug 2025 about Los Angeles, CA, HPI, housing, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller IL-Chicago Home Price Index (CHXRSA) from Jan 1987 to Sep 2025 about Chicago, WI, IN, IL, HPI, housing, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for All-Transactions House Price Index for Massachusetts (MASTHPI) from Q1 1975 to Q3 2025 about MA, appraisers, HPI, housing, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for All-Transactions House Price Index for Los Angeles County, CA (ATNHPIUS06037A) from 1975 to 2024 about Los Angeles County, CA; Los Angeles; CA; HPI; housing; price index; indexes; price; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for All-Transactions House Price Index for Orange County, CA (ATNHPIUS06059A) from 1975 to 2024 about Orange County, CA; Los Angeles; CA; HPI; housing; price index; indexes; price; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for All-Transactions House Price Index for Virginia (VASTHPI) from Q1 1975 to Q3 2025 about VA, appraisers, HPI, housing, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for All-Transactions House Price Index for Pennsylvania (PASTHPI) from Q1 1975 to Q3 2025 about PA, appraisers, HPI, housing, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for All-Transactions House Price Index for New Jersey (NJSTHPI) from Q1 1975 to Q2 2025 about NJ, appraisers, HPI, housing, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for All-Transactions House Price Index for Philadelphia, PA (MSAD) (ATNHPIUS37964Q) from Q3 1976 to Q3 2025 about Philadelphia, PA, appraisers, HPI, housing, price index, indexes, price, and USA.