National home prices notched their sixth consecutive month of slowed appreciation, “a steady decline from the 4.1% growth recorded at the start of 2025,” said this week’s release of the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Home Price Index (HPI) for July.
The index rose just 1.7% from July 2024 to July 2025, sliding from 1.9% annual growth in June and 2.3% growth in May. In July, softening across the Sun Belt intensified as national home prices fell 0.2%, marking the first monthly decline of 2025.
“Metros in the West and the South bore the brunt of the slowdown, with Tampa, Miami, San Francisco and Dallas all experiencing annual declines of more than one percentage point,” noted Thom Malone, principal economist at Cotality.
Malone attributed weakness in those markets to rising insurance premiums and “lingering affordability issues” following pandemic-era price hikes. Many so-called pandemic boomtowns have seen accelerated price softening as demand weakens.
The HPI’s 10-city and 20-city composite indexes posted monthly declines but annual gains of 2.3% and 1.8%, respectively. New York, Chicago and Cleveland led among major U.S. metros with annual appreciation of 6.4%, 6.2% and 4.5%, respectively.
Cotality noted in the release that Cleveland and Chicago were also the only metros to post monthly home price gains above typical July levels, “underscoring their relative strength in an otherwise weak national market.”
Seven metros posted annual declines, led by Tampa, Fla. (-2.8%), San Francisco (-1.9%) and Miami (-1.3%). Cotality also noted that the widespread nature of the home price softening “suggests that market weakness will continue for the rest of 2025.”
Only four of the 20 major metros tracked by the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller HPI posted annual home price declines in May — Tampa, San Francisco, Denver and Dallas. That number rose to seven in June and July, with San Diego, Phoenix and Miami joining the same culprits from May.
Prices declined across all price tiers in July, with average monthly drops of 0.2% for low-priced homes, 0.4% for mid-priced homes and 0.3% for high-priced homes. Recent research from Realtor.com and First American Data & Analytics have shown low- and mid-priced homes driving the markdowns across many markets.
“What’s keeping price growth barely in positive territory at all is the rebound we saw earlier in 2025 offsetting a soft patch in late 2024,” commented Nicholas Godec, head of fixed income tradables and commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “Essentially, the market experienced a minor dip and recovery within a 12-month span, leaving us with little overall appreciation.”
