Home Price Gains Continue Cooling Off

Black Knight Financial Services reported on Monday that home prices as measured by its national Home Price Index (HPI) continued to slow on a monthly basis, although the year-over-year rate continues to accelerate. The company said the HPI rose 0.16 percent from August to September, only two-thirds of its increase (0.24 percent) from July to August.  It was the sixth consecutive month the index's growth had slowed. The HPI, which finished the month at $282,000, posted a 6.36 annual increase. The 12-month appreciation in August was 6.24 percent.

The slowdown in gains was widespread.  Half of the 20 largest states and 17 of its largest metros saw prices fall compared to the previous month.  Michigan had the largest decline at 0.61 percent and Detroit led the large metro areas with a decline of 0.58 percent. Despite that loss, Detroit has seen its prices rise more than 10 percent thus far in 2017.

New York saw the highest rate of appreciation among the states, up 1.08 percent, the third month the state has led the list.  Rhode Island followed with an 0.93 percent change followed by Florida, Utah, and Montana, all of which had appreciation of 0.83 percent or more.

The fastest appreciation among metro areas was in Kennewick, Washington at 1.99 percent.  All of the top ten performing metros, five of which were in Florida and three in New York, had gains in excess of 1.1 percent. San Jose, the only California city on the list, saw annual appreciation of 15 percent and has a HPI of $1.03 million, nearly four times the national number.  

The number of states and metros setting new home price peaks continued to fall, with just six of the 20 largest states and 11 of the 40 largest metros hitting new highs in September.