Today’s letter is brought to you by RealAI!

❝

Your AI analysis is only as good as your data.

Connect RealAI’s MCP server and give Claude access to +3.5 trillion real estate data points, including 126M+ property records, rental data covering 20M+ multifamily units, SuperCensus data on 187M+ adult Americans, and market intelligence from the national level down to the block.

Then ask Claude to pull comps, compare rents and occupancy, benchmark a submarket, research a property, or pressure-test an underwriting assumption. RealAI supplies the data. Now you create the alpha. Find hidden insights by making Claude the best-informed real estate analyst.

Home price shifts across America's 50 largest metro housing markets

According to our analysis of the Zillow Home Value Index, U.S. home prices are up +1.3% year-over-year between August 2025 and August 2026. That year-over-year pace is up a tad from a year ago—back in August 2025, when the national year-over-year home price shift rate was -0.01%.

The pace of national softening has lost momentum over the past 12 months—and has, on a nationally aggregated basis, stabilized into a soft and low-appreciation market. That said, given the recent jump in long-term yields and mortgage rates, we'll have to watch how much momentum that softening regains in the coming months.

Of course, on a regional and local level, there’s variation.

Some regional housing markets in states, such as Texas, Florida, and Colorado, where inventory has risen above pre-pandemic 2019 levels, are still experiencing mild home price corrections.

While tight-ish inventory markets in some pockets of the Northeast and Midwest remain resilient-ish, with home prices likely pushing up a little this year. San Francisco—in particular San Francisco proper—is seeing some notable upward pricing action this year due to the AI wealth boom.

The table below shows how home prices shifts vary across the 50 largest metro housing markets.

  • MoM = Month-over-month (July 2026 to August 2026)

  • YoY = Year-over-year (August 2025 to August 2026)

  • Note: The period from July to August falls into the period when the nationally aggregated housing market is entering the seasonally softer window.

The next table shows those same 50 metro-area housing markets, but this one shows only their year-over-year shifts by year for August. That gives you perspective on how the most recent 12-month shift compares to the one in prior years.

Back in spring 2022, while working at Fortune, I highlighted that many pandemic boomtowns like Austin would be at the highest risk of home price corrections once the Pandemic Housing Boom ended—and I stated that Chicago would be my proxy for a lower-risk market this cycle.

That’s exactly what has played out.

As we’ve passed through the post-Pandemic Housing Boom cyclical cooling window since mid-2022, many of the softest and weakest pockets of the country have been in the Sun Belt and Mountain West. Many of those areas saw major price surges during the Pandemic Housing Boom, with home prices getting stretched compared to local incomes and put additional upward pressure on carrying costs (echo booms in insurance/property taxes). As pandemic-driven state-to-state domestic migration slowed and mortgage rates rose, markets like Tampa and Austin faced challenges, given that they had to rely more on local income levels to support frothy home prices. This softening trend was accelerated further by an abundance of new home supply in the Sun Belt. Builders are often willing to lower prices or offer affordability incentives (if they have the margins to do so) to maintain sales in a shifted market, which also has a cooling effect on the resale market: Some buyers, who would have previously considered existing homes, opting for new homes with more favorable deals over the past couple years—which then put some additional upward pressure on resale inventory/downward pricing pressure.

On the flip side, during the post–Pandemic Housing Boom window, the softening has been milder in many Northeast and Midwest housing markets. Many of those markets were less vulnerable because they saw smaller home price run-ups during the Pandemic Housing Boom and, thus, less froth and overvaluation. Many Northeast and Midwest markets also benefited from the cyclical slowdown in state-to-state migration (due to high switching costs, if someone pauses their plans to sell their home in Illinois and buy in Florida, that's a lost listing/supply in Illinois and a lost buyer/demand in Florida). Additionally, many Northeast and Midwest markets have lower levels of homebuilding and multifamily construction, so their resale markets didn't face as much additional cooling from homebuilders and multifamily projects offering big discounts to move units over the past few years.

Midwestern housing markets have outperformed since the Pandemic Housing Boom ended four years ago. Looking ahead, is that resilience starting to run into its limits? Is the Midwest getting frothy? We examined that Midwest question in a ResiClub PRO report this month.

❝

Want to dig into the county and ZIP Code level home price cuts?

ResiClub PRO members should check out this monthly report: Home price analysis for 800+ metros, 3,000+ counties, 25,000+ ZIPs

Real estate agents: What are you seeing in your local housing market?

Real estate agents/brokers can take the Q3 2026 Zoodealio-ResiClub Real Estate Agent Survey below.

More from ResiClub

View more
caret-right