‘Higher-for-Longer’ Cools House Price Appreciation, According to First American Data & Analytics Monthly Home Price Index Report

First American Data & Analytics, a leading national provider of property-centric information, risk management and valuation solutions and a division of First American Financial Corporation (NYSE: FAF), today released its April 2024 Home Price Index (HPI) report. The report tracks home price changes less than four weeks behind real time at the national, state and metropolitan (Core-Based Statistical Area) levels and includes metropolitan price tiers that segment sale transactions into starter, mid and luxury tiers. The full report can be found here.

April¹ National House Price Index

First American Data & Analytics’ National Non-Seasonally Adjusted (NSA) HPI
Metric	Change in HPI
March-April 2024 (month over month)	+0.5 percent
April 2023-April 2024 (year over year)	+6.1 percent

Highlights

• House prices nationally are now 53 percent higher compared to pre-pandemic levels (February 2020).
• House price growth reported in last month’s HPI for February 2024 to March 2024 was revised up 0.1 percentage points, from 0.9 percent to 1.0 percent.

Chief Economist Analysis:

“After years of historically low levels of homes for sale, the pace of existing-home listings has modestly increased, bringing much-needed supply to the housing market. However, just as inventory levels have increased, affordability has weakened as mortgage rates have drifted higher in response to the Fed’s decision to keep the federal funds rate ‘higher for longer,’ reducing demand,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American. “More supply amid a pullback in demand means price appreciation is cooling. The month-over-month growth rate peaked in February at 1.3 percent, but has since cooled significantly. This supply-demand dynamic is likely to persist, so expect year-over-year price appreciation to follow this cooling trend in the months to come.”

April 2024 Local Market Price Tier Highlights

The First American Data & Analytics HPI segments home price changes at the metropolitan level into three price tiers based on local market sales data: starter tier, which represents home sales prices at the bottom third of the market price distribution; mid-tier, which represents home sales prices in the middle third of the market price distribution; and the luxury tier, which represents home sales prices in the top third of the market price distribution.