Southeast Markets Continue to Lead in Home Price Gains

Single-family home price increases are continuing a cooling trend, reflecting falling housing demand amid rising mortgage rates. The annual rate of acceleration has slowed over the past eight months and is now at the lowest level since August 2020. Still, home prices continue to increase at a robust clip on a year-over-year basis. Home prices fell 0.8% from November to December, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which measures average home prices across the nation. That was the sixth straight month-over-month decline. On an annual basis, home prices were still up 5.8% in December, though down from the 7.6% annual jump in November and well below the all-time highs of 20.8% seen last March and April. This pattern of deceleration was apparent at a regional level. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Index posted a 4.6% annual gain in December, down from 6.8% the previous month. All 20 cities in the index reported price declines in December 2022 compared to November 2022. Some of the deepest month-to-month declines occurred in the West region of the country, with the steepest declines occurring in Phoenix (-1.9%), Portland (-1.9%), Las Vegas (-1.8%), San Francisco (-1.8%) and Seattle (-1.8%). On an annual basis, San Francisco (-4.2%) and Seattle (-1.8%) were the only areas that recorded a year-over-year decline in prices. The Southeast region, on the other hand, posted some of the nation’s biggest annual hikes, led by Miami (15.9%), Tampa (13.9%) and Atlanta (10.4%).