US house price data for August confirm the turnaround in the US residential market. The Fed’s firm decision to raise interest rates to curb inflation in the world’s leading economy at the cost of making it difficult for businesses and households to access credit has led to the first falls in house prices since the outbreak of the pandemic and at the most exceptional for months since 2009, with 1.05% less in July and 0.98% in August, according to experts in aBlack Knight data analysis.
House prices in the United States have recorded their second consecutive monthly decline since the Federal Reserve already added three consecutive hikes in the country’s interest rates of 75 basis points, reaching a target range of 3% to 3%. .25%
Median house prices fell 0.98% in August from the previous month, while in July they had already recorded a 1.05% decline, according to data from Black Knight, which provides services, data and analysis to the real estate and mortgage markets in the United States.
Despite being around 1%, it represents the largest monthly price drop since January 2009. “They represent two consecutive months of significant setbacks after more than two years of record growth,” he stressed. Ben Graboske, president of Black Knight Data and Analytics.
San José, San Francisco, and Seattle experience the biggest falls
The housing market is rapidly losing strength in the face of the soaring mortgage rates it is leading to accessibility at the lowest level since the 1980s.
But despite these early data confirming a brake on house prices, the year-over-year data continues to show a 12.1% increase compared to August last year, when the US housing market was facing an incipient bubble.
In big cities like San Giuseppe and San Francescoin California, prices fell 13% and 11% respectively from the 2022 price peak. Seattlewith a decrease of 9.9%.
But experts warn that these measures are not only alienating potential buyers from the real estate market, due to difficulties in accessing finance, but also potential sellers, as they would be forgoing historically low interest rates in a current high-rate environment. According to Black Knight, real estate assets increased from May to July but stabilized in August.
