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Home prices continued to trend upward in August according to data released Tuesday.
The national category for the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices increased 0.4 percent between July and August, and was up 2.6 percent on an annual basis, data shows.
The August reading represents a time immediately before mortgage rates began climbing again to their spot in the realm of 8 percent, and before the traditionally cooler fall market was underway. Mortgage rates started the summer at 6.79 percent in the first week of June, and climbed as high as 7.23 percent in August.
Case-Shiller
“Home prices remained strong through August, despite the high cost of a mortgage payment,” Zillow Senior Economist Nicole Bachaud said in a statement. “But as August faded into the fall, throughout September and October especially, we saw mortgage rates surpass 20-year highs. These stubbornly high mortgage rates are continuing to put pressure on affordability which is cooling the market as more buyers get pushed to the sidelines this fall.”
The Federal Housing Finance Authority’s House Price Index, also released Tuesday, found that home prices increased 0.6 percent between July and August, and were up 5.6 percent from August 2022.
While prices continued to rise over the past 12 months, sales fell off consistently as the price of a mortgage increased as well. Year-to-date home sales are trending 22 percent below last year’s levels and 23 percent below 2019, according to CoreLogic MLS PIN data — but low inventory has kept prices elevated.
The S&P’s 10-city index, a gauge of home prices in the 10 largest United States cities, registered a 3 percent annual increase in August — up from a 1 percent increase the previous month — while the 20-city composite posted a year-over-year increase of 2.2 percent. Chicago had the highest annual increase of the 20-city composite, according to the S&P.
“One measure of the strength of the housing market is the relationship of current prices to their historical levels. On that dimension, it’s worth noting that the National Composite, the 10-City Composite, and seven individual cities (Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Miami and New York) stand at their all-time highs,” Craig J. Lazzara, managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement.
