CoreLogic: Peak Fall Mortgage Rates Further Cooled Home Price Growth in December

CoreLogic®, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today released the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI^™) and HPI Forecast^™ for December 2022.

The effect of rising mortgage rates on housing demand in 2022 became even more evident in December, with annual home price growth dipping to 6.9%, down from a series high of 20% appreciation in April. Only nine states registered double-digit year-over-year price increases in December, compared with 48 that posted double-digit gains in April.

While the national unemployment rate remained at a low 3.5% in December, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,  layoffs may be affecting housing demand in some expensive metro areas, particularly those that rely heavily on the tech industry. As noted in the latest US CoreLogic S&P Case-Shiller Index, San Francisco and Seattle posted significant home price deceleration in November. Idaho was the only state to register an annual home price loss in December (-1%), compared with its 17% gain recorded in April 2022. Nevertheless, the pandemic-induced migration to suburban, exurban and rural areas may be winding down, as part of the U.S. workforce gradually returns to offices.

“The continued slowing of home prices at the end of 2022 reflects weaker housing market demand, primarily caused by higher mortgage rates and a more pessimistic economic outlook in general,” said Selma Hepp, chief economist at CoreLogic. “But while prices continued to fall from November, the rate of decline was lower than that seen in the summer and still adds up to only a 3% cumulative drop in prices since last spring’s peak.”

“Some exurban regions that became increasingly popular during the COVID-19 pandemic saw prices jump and affordability erode at the time, but these areas are now seeing major corrections,” Hepp continued. “And while price deceleration will likely persist into the spring of 2023, when the market will probably see some year-over-year declines, the recent decrease in mortgage rates has stimulated buyer demand and could result in a more optimistic homebuying season than many expected.”

Top Takeaways:

• U.S. home prices (including distressed sales) increased by 6.9% year over year in December 2022 compared to December 2021. On a month-over-month basis, home prices declined by 0.4% compared to November 2022.
• In December, the annual appreciation of attached properties (7.8%) was 1.3 percentage points higher than that of detached properties (6.5%).
• CoreLogic forecasts show annual U.S. home price gains slowing to 3% by December 2023.
• Miami posted the highest year-over-year home price increase of the country’s 20 largest metro areas in December, at 19.5%, while Tampa, Florida retained the No. 2 spot at 14.1%.
• Florida and Vermont recorded the highest annual home price gains, 15.2% and 13.5%, respectively. South Carolina posted the third-highest gain, with a 12.2% year-over-year increase. Idaho was the only state that saw a year-over-year home price loss, at -1%.

The next CoreLogic HPI press release, featuring January 2023 data, will be issued on March 7, 2023 at 8 a.m. EST

Methodology

The CoreLogic HPI^™ is built on industry-leading public record, servicing and securities real-estate databases and incorporates more than 45 years of repeat-sales transactions for analyzing home price trends. Generally released on the first Tuesday of each month with an average five-week lag, the CoreLogic HPI is designed to provide an early indication of home price trends by market segment and for the “Single-Family Combined” tier, representing the most comprehensive set of properties, including all sales for single-family attached and single-family detached properties. The indices are fully revised with each release and employ techniques to signal turning points sooner. The CoreLogic HPI provides measures for multiple market segments, referred to as tiers, based on property type, price, time between sales, loan type (conforming vs. non-conforming) and distressed sales. Broad national coverage is available from the national level down to ZIP Code, including non-disclosure states.

CoreLogic HPI Forecasts^™ are based on a two-stage, error-correction econometric model that combines the equilibrium home price—as a function of real disposable income per capita—with short-run fluctuations caused by market momentum, mean-reversion, and exogenous economic shocks like changes in the unemployment rate. With a 30-year forecast horizon, CoreLogic HPI Forecasts project CoreLogic HPI levels for two tiers — “Single-Family Combined” (both attached and detached) and “Single-Family Combined Excluding Distressed Sales.” As a companion to the CoreLogic HPI Forecasts, Stress-Testing Scenarios align with Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) national scenarios to project five years of home prices under baseline, adverse and severely adverse scenarios at state, metropolitan areas and ZIP Code levels. The forecast accuracy represents a 95% statistical confidence interval with a +/- 2% margin of error for the index.

About Market Risk Indicators

Market Risk Indicators are a subscription-based analytics solution that provide monthly updates on the overall “health” of housing markets across the country. CoreLogic data scientists combine world-class analytics with detailed economic and housing data to help determine the likelihood of a housing bubble burst in 392 major metros and all 50 states. Market Risk Indicators is a multi-phase regression model that provides a probability score (from 1 to 100) on the likelihood of two scenarios per metro: a >10% price reduction and a = 10% price reduction. The higher the score, the higher the risk of a price reduction. 

About the Market Condition Indicators

As part of the CoreLogic HPI and HPI Forecasts offerings, Market Condition Indicators are available for all metropolitan areas and identify individual markets as “overvalued”, “at value”, or “undervalued.” These indicators are derived from the long-term fundamental values, which are a function of real disposable income per capita. Markets are labeled as overvalued if the current home price indexes exceed their long-term values by greater than 10% and undervalued where the long-term values exceed the index levels by greater than 10%.

The data provided are for use only by the primary recipient or the primary recipient’s publication or broadcast. This data may not be resold, republished or licensed to any other source, including publications and sources owned by the primary recipient’s parent company without prior written permission from CoreLogic. Any CoreLogic data used for publication or broadcast, in whole or in part, must be sourced as coming from CoreLogic, a data and analytics company. For use with broadcast or web content, the citation must directly accompany first reference of the data. If the data are illustrated with maps, charts, graphs or other visual elements, the CoreLogic logo must be included on screen or website. For questions, analysis or interpretation of the data, contact Robin Wachner at newsmedia@corelogic.com. For sales inquiries, contact sales@corelogic.com. Data provided may not be modified without the prior written permission of CoreLogic. Do not use the data in any unlawful manner. The data are compiled from public records, contributory databases and proprietary analytics, and its accuracy is dependent upon these sources.

About CoreLogic

CoreLogic is a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider. The company’s combined data from public, contributory and proprietary sources includes over 4.5 billion records spanning more than 50 years, providing detailed coverage of property, mortgages and other encumbrances, consumer credit, tenancy, location, hazard risk and related performance information. The markets CoreLogic serves include real estate and mortgage finance, insurance, capital markets, and the public sector. CoreLogic delivers value to clients through unique data, analytics, workflow technology, advisory and managed services. Clients rely on CoreLogic to help identify and manage growth opportunities, improve performance and mitigate risk. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., CoreLogic operates in North America, Western Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.corelogic.com.

Contact:

Robin Wachner – Media Contact – newsmedia@corelogic.com

Source: CoreLogic, Inc.