Annual home price growth is on the decline, according to the latest S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Indices published Tuesday.
Home prices grew 0.7 percent in March, down from 0.8 percent the previous month. The downshift is due to more than half of the 20 largest markets posting annual home price declines, with Seattle (-2.5 percent), Denver (-2 percent), Tampa (-1.9 percent), Dallas (-1.7 percent) and Phoenix (-1.6 percent) recording the weakest performances.
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Chicago, New York and Cleveland were among the handful of markets that saw annual gains, with growth approaching 6 percent.
Nicholas Godec
“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,” Nicholas Godec, head of fixed income tradables and commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in the report. “With consumer inflation accelerating to roughly 3.3 percent in March, U.S. home values have now fallen in real terms for the 10th consecutive month, underscoring an ongoing erosion of inflation-adjusted housing wealth.”
Godec said March’s indices reflect strengthening “geographic divergence” with the Midwest and Northeast maintaining “modest growth” while the Sun Belt and West struggle with declining home prices.
“The spread between the strongest and weakest markets — 8.6 percentage points, from Chicago’s +6.1 percent to Seattle’s -2.5 percent — highlights how localized this housing cycle has become,” he said.
On a monthly basis, most markets experienced a slight “spring lift,” but rising mortgage rates and weakening affordability kept homebuyers from coming out in full force.
“The latest six months saw only a negligible 0.3 percent rise in national home prices, barely keeping pace with the 0.3 percent in the prior half-year – a sign of a housing market nearly at a standstill,” Godec said in a written statement. “Mortgage rates, meanwhile, have resumed climbing. The 30-year fixed rate dipped below 6 percent in late February but rebounded to roughly 6.4 percent by the end of March, re-intensifying the affordability squeeze on buyers and potentially further damping home sales and price growth.”
Lisa Sturtevant
Bright MLS Chief Economist Lisa Sturtevant said the report signals that 2026 will, much to the industry’s chagrin, be a repeat of 2025.
“At the beginning of the year, there was optimism that 2026 would be a rebounding year, with strong home sales and continued price growth,” she said in an emailed statement. “However, mortgage rates are now expected to remain higher for longer, home sales will be lower, and price growth will be softer.”
“At Bright MLS, we have adjusted our 2026 housing market forecasts downward,” she added. “Instead of a slight increase in the median home price in 2026, we are now predicting a slight year-over-year drop in the median price. This shift reflects the growing number of markets where price growth has already turned negative.”
Bright MLS data visualized with Claude.
Bankrate Financial Analyst Stephen Kates echoed Sturtevant, saying that homesellers must adopt more “realistic pricing” to survive the current market.
“The national housing market has enjoyed steady growth each quarter since the beginning of 2012, so a period of flattening prices is healthy for a market that has left many would-be homebuyers on the sidelines,” he said in an emailed statement. “This slowdown acts as a pressure valve, allowing local incomes to catch up with the cost of shelter after years of unsustainable jumps.”
“For prospective buyers, this is welcome news; for existing homeowners, it is a worrisome trend,” he added. “… Sellers can no longer expect standard bidding wars or demand wild asking prices, especially since more than half of the major metropolitan markets are now experiencing annual price drops, per the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index. Success in this market requires realistic pricing from sellers and patience from buyers waiting for more inventory or a better rate environment.”
