A home will be listed for sale in The Heights in Houston on Monday, October 27, 2025.
Kirk Pages | Houston Chronicle | Getty Images
Home prices are finally down from last year, albeit slightly, according to daily data from Parcl Labs, which examines high-frequency listing data on single-family homes, condos and townhomes, both new and existing.
However, they could remain weaker as house prices fell 1.4% in the last three months alone.
Nationally, home prices have not turned negative since mid-2023, a year after the Federal Reserve first raised interest rates from zero and mortgage rates rose significantly. From March 2022 to June 2023, the average interest rate on the popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose from 3.9% to just over 7%, according to Mortgage News Daily.
But even then, year-on-year prices were only negative for a few months. According to the S&P Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, it was none other than the Great Financial Crisis, when home prices fell 27% from their peak in 2006 to their low in 2012.
“More recently, we have observed a period of national slowdown following the rapid increase during the Covid years of 2020 to 2022,” said Jason Lewris, co-founder of Parcl Labs. “The sharp rise in mortgage rates in 2022 and 2023 triggered an affordability shock: Buyers were priced out, sales volumes fell, and sellers had to adjust their expectations. Historically, this combination of a credit or affordability shock, weaker demand, and more inventory than the market can easily accommodate tends to result in widespread national price declines.”
Inventories today are still historically low, but have come off the near-record lows of recent years. According to Realtor.com, active listings in November were nearly 13% higher than November 2024, but new listings were only 1.7% higher. Sellers are also pulling their homes off the market at an unusually high rate.
Nationally, prices are down less than 1%, but certain markets are seeing even steeper declines: Prices in Austin, Texas, are down 10% compared to last year; in Denver, they're down 5%, according to Parcl Labs. In Tampa, Florida and Houston prices each fell by 4%, and in Atlanta and Phoenix prices fell by 3%.
There are also markets that are seeing gains: In Cleveland, prices rose 6%; Prices rose 5% each in Chicago and New York City; In Philadelphia, prices rose 3%; and Pittsburgh and Boston each saw a 2% price increase, according to Parcl.
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While other home price indices and surveys only measure the value of existing homes, this one measures both new and existing homes. Since the government shutdown began, there has been no government data on housing starts, building permits or sales of newly built homes, so it is difficult to paint a picture of supply in price forecasting.
However, construction companies reporting their quarterly results have indicated that demand is still relatively weak and stimulus is still needed. The mood among house builders is still clearly negative.
“We continue to see weak demand as a weakening labor market and strained consumer finances contribute to a difficult sales environment,” Robert Dietz, NAHB chief economist, said in a November news release. “After a decline in single-family home construction starts in 2025, the NAHB forecasts a slight increase in 2026 as developers continue to report future sales conditions in slightly positive territory.”
Mortgage rates have changed little over the past three months and showed little reaction to the Federal Reserve's latest rate cut on Wednesday. Therefore, it is unlikely that property prices will have much of an impact either.
“Our base case from here is not a deep national downturn, but rather a period where prices hover around zero, with small positive or small negative changes year-over-year, rather than the double-digit gains of the pandemic era,” Lewris said. “How far they move in one direction or the other will depend largely on mortgage rates and the general health of the economy.”