The steady rise in metro Detroit home prices is slowing, much like the rest of the country.
A national measure of prices for August rose 4.2% from a year earlier, according to data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller, smaller than the 4.8% increase in July. A similar trend appears in the index’s data for Southeast Michigan.
The Case-Shiller data shows that in metro Detroit, home prices were up 5.98% from a year earlier, compared with 6.65% in July.
Home inventory has been on the rise in the region in recent months, particularly as summer — the typically busier buying and selling season — came to an end, and sales have seen a decline.
The Case-Shiller index for August tracks a three-month period starting in June when the average rate on a 30-year mortgage hovered above 6.8%. Borrowing costs later eased, but have started ticking up in recent weeks.
Online brokerage Redfin released a report Tuesday morning showing that a typical homebuyer in the U.S. has lost $33,250 in purchasing power over the last six weeks as mortgage rates have again climbed.
In mid-September, the lower mortgage rates meant that owning a home in metro Detroit was a less costly option compared to renting.
High mortgage rates are weighing on the housing market. Closed sales of previously owned homes were down to a 10-month low in August and fell further in September, according to the National Association of Realtors.
“Home-price growth is beginning to show signs of strain, recording the slowest annual gain since mortgage rates peaked in 2023,” Brian Luke, head of commodities, real and digital assets at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement Tuesday.
In August, a measure of home prices in 20 cities rose 5.2% from a year earlier, compared with a 5.9% annual gain in July, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data show. New York had the biggest increase with an 8.1% climb in prices, followed by Las Vegas and Chicago.
The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate in September. Investors have been speculating about the size of any future cut by the central bank given strong economic data in recent weeks.