Home value vs inflation
Did your home beat inflation?
Enter what you paid, when, and your ZIP code. You get what your purchase price is worth in today’s dollars next to what your home is worth if it grew like your area did, and the real change between them, from the federal FHFA House Price Index and the BLS Consumer Price Index with the math shown.
Your home against inflation
Type your purchase price and ZIP, pick the month and year, and press the button. The example below is a real result.
Informational only, not professional advice and not an appraisal. It compares an area average with a national price index; neither is your house or your household.
Methodology
The formula. Home factor = index now ÷ index at purchase, from the FHFA House Price Index for the smallest area with usable data (ZIP, then county, then metro, then state), exactly as the value calculator does. Inflation factor = CPI at the index’s last period ÷ CPI in your purchase month. Real factor = home factor ÷ inflation factor, and the real annual rate is the real factor to the power of one over the years, minus one. Your purchase price × the inflation factor is what you paid restated in end-period dollars; the home’s value minus that is the real gain or loss.
The CPI series. The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), all items, US city average, not seasonally adjusted, series CUUR0000SA0, from BLS’s public data file. It is monthly from 1975 in this site’s snapshot, latest August 2026. The purchase side uses the CPI for the exact month you bought.
Lining up the ends. The home index ends at its last published period, a quarter for states and metros (currently 2026 Q2) or a year for counties and ZIPs (currently 2025). The CPI is newer than that, so using its latest month would charge the home for inflation the index has not seen yet. The tool instead averages the CPI over the months of the index’s last period, and prints how many months that average covers. Both sides then end at the same date.
Snapshot, not a live feed. Both series are pulled and committed to this site (HPI last pull 2026-09-28; CPI last pull 2026-09-28) and refreshed together each quarter.
What this comparison cannot know
- Your house. The value tracks the area’s average. Renovations, condition and lot are invisible to it.
- Sales the index never sees. Per FHFA’s own description, the index is built from repeat sales and appraisals on conforming mortgages. Cash, jumbo, FHA and VA purchases are not in it.
- Your cost of living. The CPI-U is a national average basket. Local prices, and what your household buys, differ from it.
- Whether owning paid off. Interest, taxes, insurance, upkeep, selling costs and the rent you did not pay are all outside this comparison. It is not an appraisal.
Last reviewed: September 2026. Data vintage: FHFA master file 2026 Q2; annual county and ZIP files dated March 31, 2026; CPI-U through August 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What does real change mean?
Change measured in dollars of the same buying power. If your home's value rose 95 percent and prices in general rose 40 percent over the same years, most of the first number is just money being worth less. Dividing the home's factor by the inflation factor gives the real factor, and the result shows both so you can see how much of the gain was inflation.
Which inflation measure is used?
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, all items, US city average, not seasonally adjusted, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is the national headline series. The result uses the CPI for your purchase month and the average CPI over the last period the home index covers, so both sides end at the same date.
Why not use a local cost of living?
BLS publishes regional and some metro CPIs, but they are less frequent, cover fewer areas, and are not what most people mean by inflation. The national series is the common yardstick and the one every other figure is compared against. A local series can be added later if there is demand; the result labels which one it used.
Does beating inflation mean owning paid off?
No. This compares the home's value with the general price level, nothing else. Whether owning beat renting depends on the mortgage interest paid, taxes, insurance, upkeep, selling costs and the rent avoided, none of which is here. A home that trailed inflation can still have been a better deal than renting, and the reverse.
Related tools
Enter what you paid, when, and your ZIP. See what your home is worth today if it grew like homes in your area did, with the FHFA index values and the math shown.
Open tool →Home Price Change Since Any YearPick a state or metro area and a month since 1975. See how much home prices have gone up since then, per year, with the FHFA index values and the same window for the state and the US.
Open tool →