U.S. house prices rise 0.4 pct in May

U.S. house prices increased 0.4 percent in May, better than the market expectation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) said Tuesday.

U.S. house prices rose 0.4 percent in May from the revised level of April, according to the FHFA's House Price Index, as the April data has been revised to a 0.1 percent monthly price increase above the original estimate of no change.

The performance of May is better than the market expectation of 0.2 percent. Compared with the same period of 2013, U.S. house prices have increased 5.5 percent in May, said the FHFA.

Two of the nine census divisions suffered price decline compared with April, while on an annual basis all the divisions witnessed growth from 2.5 percent in the Middle Atlantic division to 9.6 percent in the Pacific division.

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. Endite