Home Prices Fall For 5 Consecutive Months, Presenting An Opportunity For Investors

As high mortgage rates reduce sales volumes, home prices saw further declines in November, a trend that's expected to continue into the spring.

What Happened: November home prices declined a seasonally-adjusted 0.3% nationally from the prior month, according to S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices data issued Tuesday by S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Price gains on a year-over-year basis slowed from 9.2% to 7.7% in November.

“November 2022 marked the fifth consecutive month of declining home prices in the U.S.,” Craig Lazzara, managing director of S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “For example, the National Composite Index fell -0.6% for the month, reflecting a -3.6% decline since the market peaked in June 2022. We saw comparable patterns in our 10- and 20-City Composites, both of which stand more than -5.0% below their June peaks.”

“These declines, of course, came after very strong price increases in late 2021 and the first half of 2022,” Lazzara mentioned.

Read Also: U.S. Home Seller Profits Top 50% in 2022 Despite Market Slowdown

Though, prices in an index tracking 20 of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas were mixed. Case-Shiller’s 20-city composite, on an unadjusted year-over-year basis, gained 6.8%, representing a modest slowdown from 8.6% in the previous month.

While prices on a seasonally-adjusted month-over-month basis were mixed in all 20 cities tracked by the index, some metropolitan areas saw greater increases than others, with Miami, Tampa, and Atlanta experiencing the highest increases from the month prior.

Why It Matters: Declining home prices in November likely aren't surprising to those who have been watching existing home-sale prices fall month-over-month as mortgage rates rose.

The five-month stutter in home prices hasn't hurt homebuilder stocks. Shares of Lennar Corp LEN are up more than 10% since the year started, and PulteGroup, Inc. PHM shares rocketed nearly 9% Tuesday after the homebuilder reported results that smashed expectations.

Pulte issued an EPS of $3.63 on revenues of $4.17 billion, widely ahead of analyst expectations on the top and bottom lines.

Now Read: Homebuilder Stocks Soar Following Positive Market Data: What You Need To Know

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