Home Prices & Equity Fall in September
Home prices fell for the third straight month and home equity fell in Q3 as rates continued to climb, according to Black Knight’s September Mortgage Monitor Report.
- M-O-M: Black Knight’s Home Price Index reported the median home prices falling 0.52% in September, this was the third straight decline but was less than half of the declines in July and August.
- Y-O-Y: Despite the declines, home prices are still up 10.7% year-over-year, down from 12.1% in August and is down almost half from the 20.4% peak reported in March.
Bad Time In Cali. California has 3 of the top5 markets for home price declines with San Jose leading the way with prices off 13.3% from the 2022 peak followed by San Francisco (-12.1%) at #2 and San Diego (-8.2%) at #4.
- Seattle was number three with a 10.8% drop and Phoenix was number five with a 7.6% drop.
Florida Still Hot. Florida is the exact opposite of Cali with 4 of the top 5 markets with the highest home price growth rates year-over-year. Miami took the top spot with home prices up 22.7% followed by Tampa (+19.8%), Orlando (+18.9%), and Jacksonville (+16.5%) at number 5.
- Dallas, TX was the only non-Florida market in the top five with 17.2% growth in the number four spot.
Less Equity. Homeowner equity is down $1.5T (8.4%) from the May 2022 peak with the average borrower down about $30k. However, even with recent declines, homeowner equity is up $5T total and 92,000 for the average mortgage holder from the start of the housing boom in 2020.
- Fewer than 500k homes are currently underwater nationwide.
Amazing Stat. I know I mentioned this last week, but this must be reiterated. With the 30-year rate at 7.08% as of October 27, just 133K high-quality refinance candidates remain – the smallest such population on record.
BOTTOM LINE: Home prices are slipping along with equity but less than 1.0% of mortgaged properties are underwater.
