Lower Appreciation Not Yet Reflected in Annual Gains

While it is clear that the growth of home prices has started to slow, reports on the results of the deceleration are diverging. Earlier this week Black Knight reported its Home Price Index (HPI) was up 0.6 percent in October, today CoreLogic puts the gain at 1.3 percent.

The CoreLogic report says its reported October appreciation is a full 1 percentage point lower than the peak posted for April. The annual rate of increase in the HPI for the October was 18 percent, identical to the 12-month growth it reported for September, and the highest recorded in the 45-year history of the index. Incidentally, in April the annual increase was 13 percent, showing the rapid run-up of prices over the summer and early fall.

Detached properties (i.e., single-family residences) continue to appreciate at a much higher rate (19.5 percent, also a record high) than attached properties at 12.9 percent. This also differs substantially from the 11 percent gain for single family homes reported by Black Knight which also reported that condo prices are now rising faster than those for single-family houses.

Price gains remain strongest in the Mountain West, with Arizona and Idaho again topping the charts with growth of 28.8 percent and 28.7 percent, respectively. Utah was third at 24.5 percent. Twin Falls, Idaho had the fastest growth among metros at 35.8 percent, but the South did weigh in. Naples, Florida was second at 33.5 percent.

Despite affordability challenges, a recent CoreLogic consumer survey shows that over half of respondents across every age cohort said that owning a home has always been a goal of theirs - further supporting the outlook that consumer desire for homeownership remains.

"New household formation, investor purchases and pandemic-related factors driving demand for the limited supply of available for-sale homes continues to propel the upward spiral of U.S. home prices," said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "However, we expect home price growth to moderate over the near term as many buyers take a break for the holidays."

CoreLogic's forward looking HPI projects that slowdown to result in a year-over-year increase of only 2.5 percent by next October "as affordability and economic concerns deter some potential buyers and additional for-sale inventory becomes available."