US house prices up 0.7% in June

U.S. house prices climbed 0.7 percent in June on a seasonally-adjusted basis, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) said Thursday. Over the 12 months ending June, the house prices rose 7.2 percent, showed the FHFA's monthly House Price Index. Though the upbeat figures showed that the U.S. housing market is on the mend, the situation varied from region to region. Among the nine census divisions, prices of the East South Central division, including Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, climbed the most by 1.6 percent, while the prices of the Middle Atlantic division, including New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, decreased 0.6 percent. The house prices in June, FHFA said, were still about 10 percent below the April 2007 peak level and roughly the same as the January 2005 level. The FHFA measured changes in real estate values using purchases of properties with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. It did not provide a specific price for houses. The U.S. National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that the median existing home price for all housing types jumped to 213,500 U.S. dollars in July, up 13.7 percent from a year earlier. This marks 17 consecutive months of year-on-year increases.