Case-shiller Home-price Growth Experiences September Cooldown

U.S. home-price growth continued to cool in September. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home-price index (HPI) rose 3.9% annually to a reading of 324.80 in September, according to data released Tuesday.

This increase is down from a 4.3% annual gain in August and a 5% jump in July, and it marks the lowest year-over-year increase since August 2023. Through the first nine months of 2024, annual home-price growth has averaged about 6%. Month over month, home prices were down 0.1%.

“On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, prices fell between August and September,” Lisa Sturtevant, the chief economist at Bright MLS, said in a statement. “Traditionally, the HPI has shown an increase in home price growth between August and September. This year, the September data could be indicative of a slowdown in home price appreciation in the months ahead.”

The 20-city and 10-city composite indices also showed signs of slowing in September, with annual price gains cooling from 5.2% and 6% to 4.6% and 5.2%, respectively. On a monthly basis, both indices showed price declines, with the 20-city index cooling by 0.3% to a reading of 333.59 and the 10-city index dropping 0.4% to a reading of 350.61.

New York City yet again recorded the largest annualized gain at 7.5%, followed by Cleveland (+7.1%) and Chicago (+6.9%). At the other end of the spectrum, the formerly red-hot market of Denver posted the smallest year-over-year price gain at 0.2%.

The Case-Shiller data for September showed some similarities to the quarterly home-price dataset released Tuesday by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). U.S. home prices rose 0.7% between the second and third quarters and were up 4.3% compared to Q3 2023, the FHFA reported.

Looking ahead, Sturtevant expects home-price growth to continue slowing as housing inventory continues to rise. According to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the number of unsold existing homes rose 0.7% from September to October and totaled 1.37 million, representing 4.2 months of supply at the current sales pace.