One of the many products that the St. Louis Fed’s Community Development department makes available to the public is the Housing Market Conditions (HMC) Report. The report, now in its third year, is published quarterly and overviews housing conditions for each of the seven states that comprise the Eighth District. Although the District is comprised of the entire state of Arkansas and only parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee, the report includes data for the entirety of each state. In the fourth quarter of 2013, the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) of Little Rock, Louisville, Memphis and St. Louis were added to the report.

While many products from the St. Louis Fed give detailed analysis and anecdotal information of economic conditions in the Eighth District (such as the Burgundy Book), the HMC Report is meant to provide simple and easy-to-interpret data points on housing conditions in a user-friendly interface. This structure is intentional, so that community development organizations, nonprofits and policymakers throughout the District can use the report as a versatile tool for whatever their needs might be. Each quarter, the HMC report provides the most up-to-date numbers for various datasets that portray a snapshot of conditions. For each state and MSA, the HMC report provides:

• Color-coded maps that reflect the number of mortgages considered seriously delinquent (i.e., those that are delinquent 90 days or more, or are in foreclosure) and the respective quarterly percentage change in these numbers
  • By county for the U.S.
  • By ZIP code for each state and MSA
• A listing of the top 10 ZIP codes with mortgages under stress
• Historical house price index (HPI) charts from both the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and CoreLogic (also includes the U.S. as a whole)

For each state, MSA and national snapshot, a PDF is created for the user to download and print. The “Housing Market Conditions Archive” is available at www.stlouisfed.org/community_development/HMC/PDFarchives/index.cfm; it makes available all previous reports dating back to the first quarter of 2012.

Figure 1

Seriously Delinquent Mortgages by ZIP Code, June 2014

In June 2014, 3.09 percent of loans in Missouri were seriously delinquent (delinquent 90 days or more or in foreclosure). The national rate stood at 4.23 percent.

Source: Lender Processing Services

In the most recent HMC report for the second quarter of 2014, all of the Eighth District states saw an increase in house prices compared to the first quarter of the year. This is the first time all states saw a quarterly increase since the third quarter of 2013. Kentucky saw the biggest increase at 2.7 percent. For year-over-year change, all states saw a rise in prices, with Tennessee seeing the largest increase (5.6 percent) and Illinois coming in second (4.2 percent). For the MSAs, all regions saw a quarterly increase in house prices, with the Louisville MSA showing the largest increase (3.2 percent). All MSAs saw an increase in year-over-year change as well, with the Memphis MSA seeing the largest increase (3.7 percent). Little Rock MSA house prices have surpassed their pre-recession high, while the Louisville MSA is on pace to surpass theirs by next quarter.

The CoreLogic HPI shows that all of the Eighth District states saw an increase in house prices for the first quarter of 2014, with Illinois seeing the largest gain at 6.6 percent. For year-over-year change, all states except Arkansas (at -0.5 percent) saw a rise in prices, with Tennessee seeing the largest increase (7.0 percent) and Illinois coming in second (5.3 percent). The CoreLogic HPI also shows that the state of Tennessee has surpassed its pre-recession house price high. For the MSAs, all regions saw a quarterly increase in house prices, with the Memphis MSA showing the largest increase (6.3 percent). For year-over-year change, all MSAs except Little Rock (at -1.4 percent) saw an increase, with the Memphis MSA and the St. Louis MSA tying for the largest increase (5.2 percent).

Since the first quarter of 2014, seriously delinquent mortgages fell in all Eighth District states and in the major MSAs. Seriously delinquent levels are below the national average in Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, while levels remain above the national average in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana and Mississippi. Mississippi has the District’s highest level of seriously delinquent mortgage shares among states at 6.48 percent, while Missouri retains the lowest rate at 3.09 percent.

For the MSAs, St. Louis and Louisville are below the national average for seriously delinquent mortgages, while Memphis and Little Rock remain above. The Memphis MSA has the highest level of seriously delinquent mortgage shares at 7.0 percent, while the St. Louis MSA has the lowest at 3.46 percent.

The current iteration of the HMC Report, for the second quarter of 2014, is available at www.stlouisfed.org/community-development/housing-and-foreclosure-resources/housing-market-conditions. For more information, contact Senior Communications Specialist Suzanne Jenkins at suzanne.m.jenkins@stls.frb.org.

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