Rates aren’t the only thing hitting the brakes. Home price growth saw a 13-month slowdown in April, which was another win for homebuyers hoping to break into a seller’s market. However, by May prices started to ramp up again — breaking the more than year-long streak, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index.
Home price growth decelerated to the slowest pace since 2012 through the first few months of 2019. In 2018, home prices ramped up by 4.5 percent; however, by April of this year, annual gains had fallen by one percentage point to 3.5 percent. In May, that number ticked up to 3.6 percent YOY.
“Home price gains continued in a trend of broad-based moderation,” says Philip Murphy, managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a statement. “Year-over-year price gains remain positive in most cities, though at diminishing rates of change. Seattle is a notable exception, where the YOY change has decreased from 13.1 percent in April 2018 to zero percent in April 2019.”