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TURNING DOWN THE THERMOSTAT: HOME PRICE GROWTH POSTS YEAR-ON-YEAR COOLDOWN

U.S. monthly home prices picked up a bit in October.

Case-Shiller's 20-city composite USSHPQ=ECI shows prices grew by 0.3% on a monthly basis, marking a slight acceleration from the 0.2% September print and slightly warmer than analysts anticipated.

Year-on-year, however, price growth cooled to 4.2% from 4.6%, sticking the consensus landing.

In recent months, depleted inventories of homes on the market - attributable at least in part to elevated mortgage rates, which have deterred many homeowners from putting their homes on the market - have fanned the flames, and with this, U.S. home prices have muscled higher.

"The annual returns continue to post positive inflation adjusted returns but are falling well short of the annualized gains experienced this decade," writes Brian Luke, S&P Core Logic's head of commodities, real & digital Assets.

"With the latest data covering the period prior to the election, our national index has shown continued improvement," Luke adds. "Removing the political uncertainly risk has led to an equity market rally; it will be telling should the similar sentiment occur among homeowners."

While every city in the composite saw annual gains, homes in New York and Chicago enjoyed the biggest annual price increases at 7.3% and 6.2%, respectively.

Tampa and Denver were the laggards, both up about 0.4% from October 2023.

(Stephen Culp)

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