House prices in the U.S. climbed 0.4% in October, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) seasonally adjusted Home Price Index.
While the increase marks a slowdown from the previous month’s 0.7% growth rate, on a year-over-year basis, the October figure represents a 4.5% rise.
“Annual house price gains have been trending down since February, stabilizing around 4.5% during the last three months,” said Anju Vajja, deputy director for FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistics, in a release on Tuesday. “Even with elevated house prices and mortgage rates putting continued pressure on affordability, house prices continued to grow at a steady rate, likely due to a historically low inventory of homes for sale.”
The FHFA index is based on publicly available indices that measure changes in single-family home values across the U.S.
Meanwhile, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, which tracks residential real estate on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, reported a 3.6% annual increase in October.
“Our national index hit its 17th consecutive all-time high, and only two markets — Tampa and Cleveland — fell during the past month,” said Brian Luke, head of commodities, real and digital assets with S&P Down Jones Indices, in a release. “The annual returns continue to post positive inflation-adjusted returns but are falling well short of the annualized gains experienced this decade. Markets in Florida and Arizona are rising, but not keeping up with inflation, and are well off the over 10% gains annually from 2020 to present.”