By the Numbers

October’s 4.6% monthly drop follows a 10.2% decline in September, the National Association of REALTORS® reported.

Housing prices were down in all 20 cities tracked by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index.

New-home sales rose 7.5% month over month, while the median price of a new house surged to $493,000 from $455,700 in September and $427,300 a year ago, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported.

The pace of new single-family home sales, meanwhile, fell 6.1% from September to 598,000.

The median existing-home price rose for the 128th month in a row, extending its record-breaking streak of increases.

The number of homes under construction rose during the month, as homebuilders continued to work through a large backlog of homes.

The largest single-week decline in conventional mortgage rates since July brought the first increase in home-loan applications since September, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

Looking ahead, CoreLogic expects national year-over-year appreciation to slow to 3.9% by September 2023.

September is the fourth month in a row to see declining sales activity.

A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 7.08% this week from 6.94% a week ago, Freddie Mac reported. A year ago, the average mortgage carried a 3.14% rate.

Mortgage rates continued to weigh on homebuyers in September, following a brief uptick in new-home sales in August.

At the same time, mortgage applications declined 1.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis on a week-over-week basis, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

In Phoenix, home prices posted a 17.1% year-over-year gain in August, compared to a 22.4% gain in July. Month over month, prices fell 2.1.

Month over month in September, existing-home sales slid 1.5% to 4.71 million, which is 23.8% lower than the year before.

New home construction missed analyst estimates in September, falling 8.1% month over month to an annual rate 1,439,000 homes, according to government statistics.

Looking ahead, CoreLogic expects the year-over-year pace of home-price appreciation to slow to 3.5% by August 2023.