Inflation continued to outpace home price appreciation in August, according to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Index released on Tuesday.
The data for August shows that home prices rose 2.1% year-over-year in August, up from a 1.9% annual jump in July, resulting in an index reading of 336.74. In contrast to this, inflation came in at 3.4% in August, roughly 1.3 percentage points above the 2.1% home price gain.
However, HousingWire Data, which is more current than Case-Shiller shows softer home price appreciation for the week ending on October 23, 2026.
“When adjusted for inflation, home prices have been mostly flat since 2022, and sales turnover remains at lows last seen during the Great Recession. Part of this stems from seller lock-in — with record equity and low mortgage rates, homeowners have little incentive to move unless they receive an exceptional offer. It also reflects weak underlying demand,” Thomas Malone, principal economist at Cotality, said in a statement. “After more than three years of slow sales, today’s activity may be the new normal rather than a temporary dip.
On a monthly basis, home price appreciation was down 0.2% nationwide, following a modest 0.1% month-over-month increase in July. August’s decline is below the usual pre-pandemic August gain of 0.3%, which Cotality said points to persistent short-term weakness, even as annual home price growth remains strong.
“Seasonality continued to weigh on headline monthly results. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. National and 10-City Composite Indices fell 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively, while their seasonally adjusted counterparts rose 0.3% and 0.4%,” Rebecca Kaufman, the associate director of commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “The divergence suggests that the typical post-summer slowdown is obscuring some underlying strength in home prices.”
HousingWire Data shows softening home prices
HousingWire Data reveals softer home price appreciation for the week ending on October 23, 2026. For this week, the median list price was $430,000, down 2.1% compared to a year ago and 2.1% compared to a month prior.
Among some of the nation’s largest metros, as of the end of August 2026 HousingWire Data shows that Springfield, Illinois (+26.2%), Cedar Rapids, Iowa (+18.2%) and Grand Forks, North Dakota-Minnesota (+14.7%) have some of the largest annual median list price growth.
Case-Shiller Composite Indexes
Both the 10-city (372.53) and 20-city (348.97) composite indexes also showed an accelerated pace of annual home price growth in August, rising 3.6% and 2.7%, respectively, up from increases of year-over-year increases of 3.4% and 2.5%, respectively in July. Despite this, both indexes reported a month-over-month decline of 0.4% prior to seasonal adjustment.
Among the 20 cities analyzed, Chicago posted the largest annual price gain at 6.7%, while Seattle posted the largest decline at 2.0%. New York and Cleveland also recorded large annual increases in August at 6.2% and 4.3%, respectively, but like Seattle Las Vegas (-1.29%) and Dallas (-0.79%) recorded annual price declines.
On a month-over-month basis, only Chicago (0.1%) and Miami (0.2%) posted monthly price gains. On the other end of the spectrum, Seattle (-1.1%), Los Angeles (-0.8%) and Dallas (-0.8%) posted the largest monthly declines in August.
“Chicago led all metros for the sixth consecutive month, posting a 6.7% annual gain, followed by New York (6.2%) and Cleveland (4.3%). On the West coast, Seattle recorded the largest annual decline for the third consecutive month at 2.0%, followed by Las Vegas (-1.3%) and Denver (-0.8%),” Kaufman said.
