The US housing slump stretched into a fifth month, sending a measure of prices down 2.5% from a peak in June.
Q4 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more
Prices also fell roughly 0.3% in November from a month before, according to a seasonally adjusted data of national prices from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller.
Last year’s run-up in mortgage rates cast a chill on the housing market, leading to the worst annual slide in sales of previously owned homes in more than a decade.
That’s pressured prices, particularly in parts of the country such as San Francisco where affordability was already stretched. Prices in that California city were down 1.6% from a year earlier, its biggest year-over-year price decline in more than a decade.
“As the Federal Reserve moves interest rates higher, mortgage financing continues to be a headwind for home prices,” Craig Lazzara, managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “Economic weakness, including the possibility of a recession, would also constrain potential buyers. Given these prospects for a challenging macroeconomic environment, home prices may well continue to weaken.”
Prices are still higher than a year ago as homeowners benefit from the ripple effects of an extended pandemic boom that broke records in many parts of the US. Growth, however, has been slowing. Prices were up 7.7% annually in November, down from the 9.2% gain in October.
Read the full article here by Prashant Gopal, Advisor Perspectives.
