Home price growth has hit its lowest level in the past year, according to the latest update from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index.
The May Case-Shiller Index (accounting up to March on a two-month lag) found annual home price growth was 3.4% during the month. This is a drop from the April index, which reported 3.9% annual growth. The 3.4% figure is also the lowest recorded amount of annual growth in the past 12 months—in the May 2024 Case-Shiller index (accounting for March 2024), annual price gain was recorded at 6.5%.
Jake Krimmel, a senior economist at Realtor.com®, said in a release that during the first three months of 2025, “buyers have enjoyed growing inventory and easing mortgage rates,” rates which dropped from around 7% in January to roughly 6.6% in March.
However, Krimmel said, “This period of rate relief was not quite enough to spur many sidelined buyers into action. Month-over-month price changes signal a slower start to the spring selling season…due to a multitude of demand-side factors, including economic uncertainty, continued higher interest rates and declining consumer sentiment.
Nicholas Godec, head of fixed income tradables & commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices, described the results as a “divergence between slowing year-over-year appreciation and renewed spring momentum.”
Other reports such as new-home sales have indicated an upswing in real estate market activity.
“The housing market shifted from mere resilience to a broader seasonal recovery,” said Godec. “Limited supply and steady demand drove prices higher across most metropolitan areas, despite affordability challenges remaining firmly in place.”
The 10-city composite index also saw a drop, from 5.2% annual growth to 4.8%, while the 20-city composite index dropped from 4.5% annual growth to 4.1%. (The Case-Shiller Index measures prices by surveying 20 large U.S. metro areas.)
Regional breakdown
Of the 20 areas surveyed in the index, only Tampa, Florida, saw a negative annual change in its own index (a 2.16% drop, specifically). The smallest annual increase was in Dallas, Texas (a 0.19% increase), while the largest was in New York, New York (7.96%).
Seasonally adjusted, the majority of the metro areas surveyed saw negative month-over-month changes. The exceptions were New York (which saw a 0.91% increase), Cleveland, Ohio (a 0.65% increase), Chicago, Illinois (a 0.29% increase), Detroit, Michigan (a 0.24% increase), Los Angeles, California (a 0.11% increase) and Atlanta, Georgia (a 0.08% increase).
The metro areas that saw the largest seasonally adjusted drops were San Francisco, California (a 1.45% drop), Tampa (a 1.01% drop) and Dallas (a 0.82% drop). The smallest drop was in Washington, D.C., which experienced only a 0.01% price drop.
“The affordable Midwest and the less affordable Northeast housing markets continue to thrive as the well-supplied South and West regions show signs of cooling,” said Krimmel in the Realtor.com release, surveying the metro area results as region wide trends.
For the full Case-Shiller report, click here.
