In the US, there are some cities where home prices are falling

The Seattle, Phoenix and Austin home price declines during the 2008-2009 pandemic housing market: A study of an expanding metropolis with mortgage rates expected to double by 2020

Other places with falling prices saw the big price increases during the frenzied home buying market of the past few years. They are appealing lifestyle destinations because people moved to them because of the availability of remote work. In Idaho, prices fell by 3.4% and in Texas they went down by 1.3%.

With mortgage rates more than doubling since the start of this year, the calculations for a homebuyer have changed considerably. The monthly principal and interest mortgage payment on the median priced home is up $930 from a year ago, a 73% increase, according to Black Knight, a mortgage data company.

In the fourth quarter, single- family home prices climbed in nearly all of the 191 metro areas tracked by the NAR. The national median price of a single-family home increased 4% last quarter from one year ago to $378,700.

Tucker said that a number of metropolitan areas will see year-over-year price declines this spring. “That will be the worst comparison time because that’s when many markets reached their peak.”

In September, month-over-month home prices dropped in several pandemic hotspots, including Phoenix, down 2.3%; Las Vegas, down 1.9% and Austin, down nearly 1%, according to Zillow.

The city rebounded from the worst of the pandemic in 2021, when the rush to buy apartments took off. But it nosedived at the end of 2022, with the market returning to its pre-pandemic trajectory as sales dropped and prices slipped. The only outlier is that inventory is still slow to materialize.

The largest share of condos sold were one-bedrooms with a median price of $1,140,000. The median price for a two-bedroom condo was $2,150,000. The average price of a co-op was $710,000 for a one-bedroom, and $1,325,000 for a two-bedroom.

The Fourth Quarter of 2019: Inventory, Prices, and Inventory in the New York City, and the Prospect for a Strong Rate of Homebuying

As a result, there were 6,523 listings in Manhattan at the end of the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter of 2020 is 5% higher than the fourth quarter of 2021, but 13 percent less than the third quarter of 2022.

The market metrics of prices, sales and inventory are going up at a modest pace as of late, with prices rising 10% above the year before and sales higher than in previous years.

“This is an unusual situation where the low inventory is the by-product of mortgage rates being cut to the floor,” Miller said, eviscerating supply. “Normally, you’d expect inventory to expand with significant rate growth.”

He said buyers aren’t going to get a lot of improvement on affordability from 2022, and sellers aren’t going to get much improvement on affordability from 2021. The banks are disappointed because of the lack of new business.

Some high priced parts of the country may see double-digit price drops because of lower employment and more people moving to other areas.

Among the most expensive cities that saw prices falling are Anaheim, California, with the median price of $1,132,000, down 1.6% from a year ago; Los Angeles, with the median price of $829,100, down 1.3%; and Boulder, Colorado, with the median price of $759,500, down 2.0%.

The 4% median price hike during the fourth quarter is less than the 8.6% increase in the third quarter, which is good news for buyers hoping for price relief. The price increases are smaller and there are far fewer price gains in the fourth quarter.

Even though home sales are projected to reduce, prices are not expected to change much in the majority of the markets.

A New Look at Home Prices in the Fourth Quarter of the 2022 Census: Are Mortgage Payments Even For First-time Buyers Affordable?

The biggest price increase in the fourth quarter came from Farmington, New Mexico. Naples, Florida was up 14.2%, followed by Sarasota, Florida, up 19.5%, and then Greensboro, North Carolina, up 17.0%.

In the final quarter of the year of 2022, it was required for a family to earn at least $100,000 to have a 10% down payment on a mortgage in 71 markets.

First-time buyers were evidently pushed to a breaking point on affordability. They typically spent 39.5% of their family income on mortgage payments, up from 37.8% in the previous quarter. If the monthly payment equates to 25% of the family’s income, it’s considered to be unaffordable. A rule of thumb is to not spend more than 30% of your income on housing costs.