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Home values are now falling on an annual basis in Dallas, and national price growth continues to slow as the U.S. housing market turns more buyer-friendly.
Single-family home sales prices in Dallas dropped 0.21% in April compared to a year earlier, as measured by repeat transactions, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index released Tuesday.
Dallas now joins Tampa, where home prices have been falling annually for several months, as the only cities with negative price growth among the 20 major metros tracked by the index.
Nationally, home values rose 2.7% in April, slower than the 3.4% gain recorded in March and the smallest year-over-year price increase since August 2023.
“The housing market continued its gradual deceleration in April, with annual price gains slowing to their
most modest pace in nearly two years,” says Nicholas Godec, head of fixed income tradables and commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices.
“What’s particularly striking is how this cycle has reshuffled regional leadership—markets that were pandemic darlings are now lagging, while historically steady performers in the Midwest and Northeast are setting the pace,” he adds.
Godec says that this shift signals “a maturing market that’s increasingly driven by fundamentals rather than speculative fervor.”
Among the 20 cities tracked by the index, New York again reported the highest annual gain, with a 7.9% increase in April, followed by Chicago and Detroit with annual increases of 6.0% and 5.5%, respectively.
Tampa posted the lowest return, falling 2.2%. It marked the sixth consecutive month of negative annual price growth in Tampa.
“As regional supply and demand dynamics continue to diverge, so do price trends. Price growth is expected to remain strongest in the Northeast and Midwest where inventory is tightest and demand still exceeds supply,” says Realtor.com® Senior Economist Anthony Smith.
In markets that became superheated during the COVID-19 pandemic-era housing boom, affordability constraints are also increasingly coming into play, after prices escaped what local wages can reasonably support.
In those cities, notably including major markets in Texas and Florida, home prices may now remain soft or even fall until they more closely align with local wages.
“We’re witnessing a housing market in transition,” says Godec. “The era of broad-based, rapid price appreciation appears over, replaced by a more selective environment where local fundamentals matter more than national trends.”
‘Sharp corrections’ in prices unlikely
Although the Case-Shiller price data is delayed by several months, it is considered one of the best available measures of changes in home values, because it measures repeated transactions on the same properties over time.
The April data reflects a period in the heart of the spring housing season, which was historically weak this year as elevated mortgage rates and cautious consumer sentiment weighed on housing activity.
Sales of existing homes dropped 2% in April compared to a year earlier, falling to their slowest annual pace for the month of March since 2009.
Still, the supply of homes for sale remained tight compared to pre-pandemic trends, with April inventory still 16% below the typical levels seen between 2017 and 2019.
Mortgage rates, which have hovered above 6.6% since the beginning of the year, continue to discourage many sellers from listing their homes and surrendering their sub-4% pandemic-era rates, says Godec.
New construction is also failing to keep pace with demand, with a recent Realtor.com analysis estimating that the country has a supply gap of nearly 4 million homes. In the first quarter of 2025, homebuilders were on pace to build 1.4 million homes this year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
“The underlying market dynamics remain challenging but not dire,” says Godec, citing ongoing challenges with housing supply. “This supply-demand imbalance continues to provide a price floor, preventing the sharp corrections that some had feared.”