Home prices fell for the sixth straight month in December, data released Tuesday showed.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city house price index declined by a seasonally adjusted 0.5 percent in December. That matched economist expectations and the previous month.
Despite declining for half the year, prices were still up 4.6 percent for the year. That was a smaller increase than the 6.8 percent annual increase recorded for the previous month.
The national index fell 0.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in December and was up 5.8 percent from a year earlier. That is the smallest December-to-December increase since 2019. The narrower 10-city index fell by 0.4 percent after seasonal adjustment and was up 4.4 percent from a year earlier.
The figures are three-month moving averages of closing prices on homes through December.
Before seasonal adjustment, the national index fell 0.8 percent, while the 10-city index dropped 0.8 percent and the 20-City fell 0.9 percent.
“The prospect of stable, or higher, interest rates means that mortgage financing remains a headwind for home prices, while economic weakness, including the possibility of a recession, may also constrain potential buyers. Given these prospects for a challenging macroeconomic environment, home prices may well continue to weaken,” Craig J. Lazzara, managing director at S&P DJI, said in a statement.
Lazzara pointed out that this was the 15th-best performance in the 35-year history of the national index, although well below 2021’s record-setting 18.9 percent gain.
Miami, Tampa, and Atlanta reported the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities in December. San Francisco’s home prices are down 4.2 percent year-over-year and Seattle’s are down 1.8 percent.
The housing market slumped in the second half of last year amid a sharp rise in interest rates. Existing home sales fell 17.8 percent in December.