After declining MoM for the first time since June 2025 in February, US home prices in America's 20 largest cities were expected to dip again in March (according to the latest data from S&P Cotality Case-Shiller) and they did, dropping 0.16% MoM (worse than the 0.10% MoM drop expected) leaving prices up just 0.83% YoY...
Source: Bloomberg
That is the weakest annual appreciation since July 2023.
"More than half of the 20 major U.S. housing markets recorded year-over-year price declines in March, reflecting a broadening and deepening housing slowdown," said Nicholas Godec, CFA, CAIA, CIPM, Head of Fixed Income Tradables & Commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
The trend is clear across almost every city...
And the two-year chart looks particularly ugly...
"The geographic divergence remains stark," Godec continued.
"Midwest and Northeast markets are sustaining modest growth, while much of the Sun Belt and Western regions are still seeing declines. Chicago led all cities with a 6.1% annual gain, followed by New York (4.0%) and Cleveland (3.0%). In contrast, Seattle’s 2.5% year-over-year decline was the steepest in March, with Denver (-2.0%), Tampa (-1.9%), Dallas (-1.7%), and Phoenix (-1.6%) joining Seattle among the weakest performers. Even Los Angeles (-1.6%) and Washington (-0.1%) turned negative.
The spread between the strongest and weakest markets – 8.6 percentage points, from Chicago’s +6.1% to Seattle’s -2.5% – highlights how localized this housing cycle has become. (Detroit’s March reading remains unavailable due to local transaction data delays.)
Given the lag in Case-Shiller data, one could argue that prices should be starting to rise here...
"Mortgage rates, meanwhile, have resumed climbing. The 30-year fixed rate dipped below 6% in late February but rebounded to roughly 6.4% by the end of March, re-intensifying the affordability squeeze on buyers and potentially further damping home sales and price growth," Godec concluded.
But the oddly tight coupling with Fed Reserves suggests the path is lower...
Interestingly, for the 10th consecutive month, inflation outpaced national home price appreciation, with March CPI running 2.6 percentage points above the 0.7% annual gain, extending the streak of negative real home price returns.
Is this Trump's 'affordability' plan kicking in? Or just lagged rates finally impacting reality.