Prices are higher year-to-year (13% in Aug.), but the Fed applied brakes, and that’s down from July’s 15.6%. Yet at 28%+, Miami and Tampa still surge.

NEW YORK – The latest results for the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller measure of U.S. home prices finds continuing gains – but the rate of those gains is rapidly slowing across the U.S., in large part due to Federal Reserve interest rate hikes that have made mortgages more expensive and homebuyers more skittish about committing to a purchase.

Year-over-year: The index covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 13.0% year-to-year home price gain in August, down from 15.6% the previous month. The 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 12.1%, down from 14.9% in July, while the 20-City Composite posted a 13.1% year-over-year gain, down from 16.0%.

Miami (28.6% year-to-year increase), Tampa (28% year-to-year increase), and Charlotte (21.3% year-to-year increase) topped the list of U.S. cities for price increases. However, all 20 cities reported lower price increases in the year ending August 2022 versus the year ending July 2022.

Month-over-month: Before seasonal adjustment – a statistical way to make months comparable in spite of seasonal fluctuations – the U.S. National Index posted a -1.1% month-over-month decrease in August, while the 10-City and 20-City Composites both posted decreases of -1.6%.

After seasonal adjustment, the U.S. National Index posted a month-over-month decrease of -0.9%, and the 10-City and 20-City Composites both posted decreases of -1.3%.

In August, all 20 cities reported declines before and after seasonal adjustments.

“The forceful deceleration in U.S. housing prices that we noted a month ago continued in our report for August 2022,” says Craig J. Lazzara, managing director at S&P DJI. “For example, the National Composite Index rose by 13.0% for the 12 months ended in August, down from its 15.6% year-over-year growth in July. The -2.6% difference between those two monthly rates of change is the largest deceleration in the history of the index (with July’s deceleration now ranking as the second largest).”

Lazzara says the data clearly shows that “the growth rate of housing prices peaked in the spring of 2022 and has been declining ever since.”

“Florida continues to hold the top two spots, with Miami taking the lead over Tampa,” Lazzara says. “Price growth continued strongest in the Southeast (up 24.5% year-to-year) and South (up 23.6% year-to-year).