Home prices are forecasted to stabilize into a sub 5% annual growth range by year’s end, with May marking the fifth consecutive month national yearly home price growth has softened, according the latest report from housing analytics firm Clear Capital.
Despite a slow spring homebuying season, the range of home price growth across the 50 major metro markets was 22.3 percentage points over the last year.
Location is still essential to variances in areas. However, the data makes clear there are opportunites for gains in nearly every market.
For example, Cleveland has the largest variation in ZIP code performance. Cleveland’s top performing ZIP saw 42.3% annual growth, while its lowest performer saw -23.3%.
However, this was expected since the 44 major markets saw a spread greater than 15 percentage points over the last year.
But it’s no surprise that the spring buying season isn’t moving the needle this year, Alex Villacorta, vice president of research and analytics at Clear Capital, explained.
"The rising price floor in the low tier sector of the market has squeezed investor returns, thereby removing a key demand segment. We don't expect to see a large pop in prices through the summer buying season,” Villacorta said. “It's likely we'll keep chugging along at our current pace, somewhere around 1% quarterly gains for the rest of the year.”
It’s not all bad news though. While some people are discouraged by the weak spring buying season, Clear Capital is encouraged that price trends are finally calibrating back to pre-bubble norms.
So which cities are performing well? Click the next page for the top and bottom 5 performing major metro markets.
Highest performing major metro markets using Clear Capital's Home Data Index (yr/yr)
5. San Diego, Carlsbad and San Marcos, California 17.4%
4. Los Angeles, Long Beach and Santa Ana, California 18.1%
3. San Francisco, Oakland and Fremont, California 20.5%
2. Miami, Ft. Lauderdale Miami Beach, Florida 17.3%
1. Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario, California 20.5%
Lowest performing major metro market (yr/yr)
5. Hartford, West Hartford and East Hartford Connecticut 5%
4. Jacksonville, Florida 6.3%
3. Milwaukee, Waukesha and West Allis, Wisconsin 2.7%
2. Memphis, Tennessee 4.1%
1. New Orleans, Metairie and Kenner Louisiana .8%
