Even as the U.S. housing market has trudged through a prolonged transaction downturn amid elevated mortgage rates, home values have largely held up near their pandemic-era peaks.
But as real estate agents turned the page from spring to summer, they continued to see prices struggle to sustain much momentum.
A new data release from First American Financial Corp. revealed Monday that home prices were unchanged from May to June, a time of year when sale prices are usually continuing their upward seasonal climb. That’s coming off a 0.3 percent increase reported from April to May.
The change leaves home prices about 0.9 percent higher nationwide than they were in June of last year. That’s relatively weak growth by historical standards, but it’s also the highest year-over-year mark recorded since August, the report stated.
“The housing market is quietly inching back toward price growth,” First American Chief Economist Mark Fleming said in a statement accompanying the release.
Mark Fleming | Photo credit: First American
Since these national price numbers — which are not seasonally adjusted — barely budged last month, the upward trend in the annual numbers from May to June is partly explained by what happened last year, when home prices dipped slightly on a seasonally adjusted basis from February to August, according to alternative measures like the Zillow Home Value Index.
At no point did the national market experience price declines over a full 12-month period — at the national level, at least.
But at the local level, many markets are seeing distinct movement in home prices.
In Chicago, home prices were 6 percent higher last month than they were at the same time the year before, First American reported.
Meanwhile homes in Denver were selling for 3 percent less year-over-year.
To Fleming, diverging price shifts like these have a clear explanation: substantial differences in local inventory.
Chicago, like the other markets at the top of the price-hike list — including Pittsburgh, suburban Detroit, northern Virginia and central New Jersey — are experiencing particularly acute shortages of housing inventory, Fleming noted.
And on the other end of the price-shift spectrum, markets in the South and West that top the list for largest price-level declines have seen more inventory come online in recent years.
“As the national inventory recovery levels off, these local differences in housing supply will increasingly determine where house price appreciation strengthens and where it stalls,” Fleming said in the statement.
It’s a dynamic that, if it continues, is leading Fleming to expect continued annual price momentum down the stretch in 2026.
