A cooling trend may be approaching for a number of the hot U.S. housing markets, according to recent predictions.
Some American towns are about to experience a turnaround in property values after a multi-year increase, with price decreases predicted for 2024. Five cities are highlighted in CoreLogic’s U.S. Home Price Insights report for 2024 as having the highest risk of housing price declines.
The data is released against a national backdrop of home prices that, as of October, were rising 4.7% year over year and continuing their slight upward trend due to month-to-month growth.
Nonetheless, CoreLogic predicts a flat growth rate for the upcoming year, suggesting a possible pullback from the recent surges in property values.
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida, is the area most likely to see price declines; according to CoreLogic, there is a 70% chance that property values will drop there in the upcoming year.
The Youngstown-Warren-Boardman area, which encompasses Ohio and Pennsylvania; the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell area in Georgia; and several locations in Florida, such as West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach and Deltona-Daytona-Beach-Ormond Beach, are also included in CoreLogic’s “very high” risk category. These metropolitan areas previously prospered during the pandemic’s real estate boom.
Although CoreLogic does not “project actual price decline, only the probability of decline,” the analytics business told Newsweek that its analysis is nevertheless a good indicator of prospective changes to the market in the coming year.
Homes in northern states like Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island enjoyed the largest year-over-year appreciation this year, rising between 9.7 and 10.3 percent, according to CoreLogic; but, those gains weren’t felt nationwide. According to CoreLogic, states like Idaho, Montana, Texas, and Utah have already experienced price decreases, indicating that the surge in property prices that occurred during the pandemic is starting to level down.
This data is corroborated by a different research released earlier this month by Realtor.com, which projects drops in property prices in as many as 20 American cities.
With a predicted 12.2 percent decline over the period of 2024, Austin, Texas, leads Realtor’s list. St. Louis and Washington are not far behind, with predicted declines of 11.7 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively. According to the Realtor estimate, rising mortgage rates that have tempered buyer enthusiasm, changes in the economy, and changes in buying behavior are to blame for the anticipated slump.
More generally, Realtor anticipates a little decline in the current home median price appreciation in the United States, with a 1.7 percent fall. This is in contrast to the 10.3 percent increase observed in 2022 and would result in a dip from the present level of $431,000.