The St. Louis Fed was late in posting the recent Case-Shiller home price data. Here are charts from the recent data for January of 2023.

Freepik

Case-Shiller home prices via St. Louis Fed, calculation and chart by Mish

Home Price Synopsis

• Home prices have peaked this cycle but the decline is certainly tiny compared to the run up.
• There is a two-month lag in reporting. The latest report is for January and that represents sales primarily made in November and December.
• The declines shown are undoubtedly understated by a lot.
• Declines will accelerate but not fast enough to revive a housing market that has soured dramatically.

Home Prices Are Falling Everywhere, But Declines are Relatively Small

Case-Shiller home price indexes via St. Louis Fed, chart by Mish

CS National ,Top 10 Metro, CPI, OER Index Levels

Case-Shiller home price data via St. Louis Fed, CPI, OER, and Rent from the BLS, chart by Mish

Chart Notes

• OER stands for Owner's Equivalent Rent. It it the price one would pay to rent a home, unfurnished and without utilities.
• Home prices wildly disconnected from the CPI in 2000 and in 2013. The disconnect accelerated in 2020.

The Fed ignored all three occasions hoping to make up for "lack of inflation". The Fed "succeeded" in producing inflation beyond its wildest dreams. 

Sticky Prices

The year-over-year CPI has finally peaked this cycle as have home prices. But both are falling slowly. Inflation has been sticky.

Don't dwell too much on the percentages because the data is stale.

But do look at the trends. Those trends will be in place for a while. 

Not Much Out There

Stalemate

• Buyers want lower prices, but sellers want the prices they could have gotten 18 months ago. 
• Existing home owners do not want to trade a 3.0 percent mortgage rate for a 6.57 percent mortgage, the current average rate.
• New buyers cannot afford much of a home because prices have not fallen much but mortgage rates have soared.

Buyers and sellers are trapped but in a much different way than 2008. 

More By This Author:

Real Income Was Negative In 2022 Q4, Big Negative Revisions To GDP
Real Disposable Income Rises But Real Spending On Goods And Services Declines
Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin Is Not Convinced About Rate Hikes