U.S. home prices grew at record pace in October

Price growth especially strong for detached residential properties

IMAGE VIA CORELOGIC

CoreLogic, a property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, has released the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) and HPI Forecast for October 2021.

U.S. annual home price growth remained strong at 18% in October, the highest recorded in the 45-year history of the index. Nonetheless, monthly price growth has slowed from its April peak and signals a moderation in price growth that the CoreLogic HPI Forecast projects will continue to slow in coming months.

Despite affordability challenges, a recent CoreLogic consumer survey shows that over half of respondents across every age cohort said that owning a home has always been a goal of theirs – further supporting the outlook that consumer desire for homeownership remains.

“New household formation, investor purchases and pandemic-related factors driving demand for the limited supply of available for-sale homes continues to propel the upward spiral of U.S. home prices,” said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic, in a news release. “However, we expect home price growth to moderate over the near term as many buyers take a break for the holidays.”

Top takeaways from the report:

  • Nationally, home prices increased 18% in October 2021, compared to October 2020. On a month-over-month basis, home prices increased by 1.3% compared to September 2021.
  • In October, appreciation of detached properties (19.5%) was 6.6 percentage points higher than that of attached properties (12.9%).
  • Home price gains are projected to slow to a 2.5% annual increase by October 2022 as affordability and economic concerns deter some potential buyers and additional for-sale inventory becomes available.
  • In October, home prices continued to rise sharply in Twin Falls, Idaho, which logged the highest year-over-year increase at 35.8%. For the first time in 2021, Florida made it to the top of the list for home price gains, with Naples logging the second-highest ranking at a 33.5% year-over-year increase.
  • At the state level, the Mountain West continued to dominate the top spots, with Arizona and Idaho again leading the way with the strongest price growth at 28.8% and 28.7%, respectively, and Utah ranking third at 24.5%.

“Single-family detached houses remain the preferred home for buyers during the pandemic,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic. “This is reflected in the 19.5% annual price rise for detached houses, which marks another record-high for the CoreLogic Home Price Index.”