US home prices rise by least since 2012 in October, government data shows

[WASHINGTON] US home prices rose in October at the slowest annual rate in more than 13 years, government data showed on Tuesday (Dec 30), in a sign of improving affordability in the long-struggling housing market.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency said home prices rose 1.7 per cent from a year earlier in October after climbing by an upwardly revised 1.8 per cent in September. That marked the smallest annual price increase since March 2012, when prices first started rising after a five-year slump triggered by the global financial crisis.

On a regional basis, annual price changes ranged from a drop of 0.7 per cent in the lower Midwest to an increase of 5.3 per cent in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Home price increases are now a fraction of what they were during and immediately after the Covid-19 pandemic, when widespread work-from-home policies sent the real estate market into a frenzy and sent prices spiraling higher at annual rates approaching 20 per cent.

On a monthly basis, US home prices rose 0.4 per cent in October following a downwardly revised decline of 0.1 per cent in September. REUTERS