Oakland, Austin, New Orleans, Cape Coral, San Francisco, Birmingham, Washington DC, Fort Myers, Denver, Portland, Phoenix, Sarasota, Naples, Hayward.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
In 14 bigger cities, prices of mid-tier single-family homes have dropped by 10% or more from their peaks through August, seasonally adjusted. In two of them, prices have dropped by 24%.
- Oakland, CA: -24%
- Austin, TX: -24%
- Cape Coral, FL: -19%
- New Orleans, LA: -18%
- San Francisco, CA: -16%
- Birmingham, AL: -15%
- Fort Myers, FL: -13%
- Washington, DC: -12%
- Sarasota, FL: -11%
- Denver, CO: -10%
- Portland, OR: -10%
- Phoenix, AZ: -10%
- Naples, FL: -10%
- Hayward, CA: -10%
There are many other bigger cities where single-family home prices have declined but haven’t made the 10% cutoff, such as Los Angeles and San Diego (both -4% from the 2024 peak), San Antonio (-8%), Dallas (-6%), Fort Worth (-9%), San Jose (-5%), Atlanta (-5%), Memphis (-7%), Tampa (-6%), Seattle (-7%)…. Each monthly decline gets them closer to the double-digit zone.
In some other cities, prices of single-family homes have continued to rise or have flattened out.
Condo prices have been on the forefront, skidding faster in more cities than prices of single-family homes: Condo Prices Dropped by 12%-27% in these 25 Bigger Cities through August.
Entire pandemic price spike got wiped out in 4 of 14 cities. But in these four cities, the 2020-2022 price spike, though substantial, was much smaller than the price explosions in other cities. See charts below.
- San Francisco
- Oakland
- Washington, DC
- New Orleans.
Month-over-month, seasonally adjusted, single-family home prices declined in 13 of the 14 cities in August (exceptions: New Orleans, no change; Birmingham, +0.3%), topped off by:
- Oakland, CA: -1.3%
- Fort Myers, FL: -1.2%
- Sarasota, FL: -1.2%
- Naples, FL: -1.1%
- Cape Coral: -1.1%
- Hayward, CA: -1.1%
Year-over-year, prices declined in all 14 cities in August, topped off by:
- Fort Myers: -10.3%
- Oakland: -10.2%
- Cape Coral: -9.9%
- Sarasota: -8.9%
- Naples: -7.6%
- Hayward: -7.1%
- Austin: -6.8%
Methodology and data: These prices are seasonally adjusted three-month averages of single-family mid-tier homes in “cities” (not in Metropolitan Statistical Areas, which are much larger). All data here are from the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), which is based on millions of data points in Zillow’s “Database of All Homes,” including from public records (tax data), MLS, brokerages, local Realtor Associations, real-estate agents, and households across the US. It includes pricing data for off-market deals and for-sale-by-owner deals. These are not median prices.
The 14 Cities with the biggest price declines:
The metrics in each table from left to right: price decline from the peak, month-over-month change (MoM), year-over-year change (YoY), and the remaining increase since January 2000 (since 2002 for Birmingham).
| Oakland, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From May 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -24% | -1.3% | -10.2% | 280% |
Another massive 1.3% month-to-month drop in prices of these mid-tier single-family homes, after -1.5% in July, -1.6% in June, -1.4% in May!
Back to May 2018, having wiped out the entire 24% price explosion in 2020-2022, plus some.
In the decade between mid-2012 and the peak in May 2022, prices had exploded by 236%, which was nuts.
| Austin, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Jun 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -24% | -0.5% | -6.8% | 167% |
Retracing more than half of the 63% price explosion in 2020-2022, with prices back where they’d first been in May 2021.
| Cape Coral, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Aug 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -19% | -1.1% | -9.9% | 217% |
Despite the big drop, prices are only back to late 2021, having backed out only the last nine months of the 76% price explosion from mid-2020 to mid-2022.
These kinds of housing charts are just incomprehensible, other than as a work of human mania driven by FOMO and free money.
| New Orleans, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Jun 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2007 |
| -18% | 0.0% | -2.9% | 108% |
Back to September 2020, having undone nearly the entire price spike of 23% between mid-2020 and mid-2022.
| San Francisco, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From May 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -16% | -0.1% | -1.2% | 233% |
Back to where prices had first been in April 2018. The entire 2020-2022 price spike of 13%-plus-some has been reversed.
Prices had exploded in the six years through mid-2018, doubling from $700,000 in late 2012 to $1.40 million for a single-family mid-tier home. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were at $1.44 million. Over the following two years, prices spiked by “only” 14%. So the 16% price decline wiped out those gains, plus some.
| Birmingham, AL, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Jul 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2002 |
| -15% | 0.3% | -3.7% | 32% |
From mid-2020 to mid-2022, prices spiked by 53%. Only a little more than one-third of that increase has now been backed out.
| Fort Myers, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Aug 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -13% | -1.2% | -10.3% | 191% |
Lowest since February 2022. Prices had exploded by 62% in two years to mid-2022. Only the last five months of that explosion have been backed out so far.
| Washington D.C., Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Jun 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -12% | -0.5% | -4.4% | 272% |
Lowest since May 2020, having undone the entire 13% price spike from mid-2020 to mid-2022.
| Sarasota, FL, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Aug 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -11% | -1.2% | -8.9% | 230% |
| Phoenix, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Jul 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -10% | -0.4% | -4.5% | 249% |
Back to January 2022, having barely made a dent in the effects of the 60% two-year price explosion to mid-2022.
| Portland, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From May 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -10% | -0.1% | -1.1% | 222% |
Lowest since May 2021.
| Denver, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Jun 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -10% | -0.3% | -4.5% | 212% |
Back to November 2021.
| Naples, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Apr 2024 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -10% | -1.1% | -7.6% | 249.6% |
Just the very tippy-top of the insane 76% two-year price explosion has been shaved off.
| Hayward, CA, City, Single-Family Home Prices | |||
| From Aug 2022 peak | MoM | YoY | Since 2000 |
| -10% | -1.1% | -7% | 276% |
Prices in this East Bay city had exploded by 35% in two years to mid-2022, and by nearly 300% in the 10 years from 2012 to 2022.
And in case you missed it: The Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America, Aug 2025: Price Drops & Gains in 33 Large Expensive Metros. Overall US Home Prices Fell YoY
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It’s quite interesting to see Oakland and SF going back to 2016/2017 level…you talk to people from just a year or two ago, they would bet asteroid would hit us first before thinking about there’s possibility it can retrace back to pricing almost a decade ago. Looks like it’s not done yet, will be interesting to see what this will look like in the next couple of years.
Wonder if the people in NorCal learned their lesson yet? That level of hubris thinking is still rampant in SoCal, guess we’re behind compare to NorCal. Chino Hills or Irvine back to 2016/2017 pricing? Never….
I think people tend to forget that there were large demographics shifts that affected the rise and current fall of prices in some of these cities. AFAIK, SF had a net outflow of people during the pandemic, so it will see a larger decline as compared to a city in the IE, which most likely saw a large influx of people moving in due to cheaper COL.
CA Inland Empire ( RiverSide County for example ) would fall hard. It’s a matter of time. The income there does not support absolutely support the monthly mortgage outlay. One can think about paying top dollars for SFO as SFO being a pretty interesting and big city but I can’t think about anyone paying lots of money in IE which is in the middle of nowhere in the desert.
During last bubble, IE fell hard, I guess this time it’d fall harder.
Chinese would but a perfectly built mansion in Hillsborough and level it.
They would then build another mansion to Their liking.
Lots of foreign millionaires in the Bay Area.
In addition to larger macro trends, there are some other factors that might be specific to Oakland.
1. Oakland is struggling with crime, huge deficits, declining or absent basic services brought on by years of bad leadership and bad policies of ultra progressive politics.
2. In terms of buying property to rent out the laws have become extremely anti-landlord / pro tenant.
3. Lastly, a lot of new supply had just come online in downtown during COVID.
How do you explain Austin, Texas which has fallen just as hard?
@Wolf Am I right to assume that this data represents nominal prices (not adjusted for inflation)?
Thank you.
Just like other asset prices, such as the S&P 500 index.
Why don’t you ask that question when someone posts an S&P 500 figure or chart???
Duh
Thank you.
So why aren’t the banks failing yet?
1. Because they’re not on the hook. The taxpayer guarantees the majority of residential mortgages via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, FHA, VA…. That’s one of the biggest changes coming out of the financial crisis. Did you miss it?
2. So far, people are still making their mortgage payments, and default rates remain low.
3. Only 12 states are nonrecourse where borrowers can walk away from a purchase mortgage. The other states are full recourse, and if you default on the mortgage and try to walk away, the lender can get a deficiency judgment and hound you by going after your assets and garnish your wages. Not recommended. Better to stay in the home, keep making the mortgage payments, go on with your life, and quit looking on Zillow every day.
The biggest drops seem to be in cities with the biggest run-ups. Too bad Birmingham, AL, (a mid-tier single-family home for $130,000) is such a crappy place to live. ” Its violent crime rate – which includes instances of murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – was 1,682 per 100,000 residents. Its property crime rate – which includes burglary, larceny, and vehicle theft – was notably higher at 4,173 per 100,000 residents.” -Wikipedia. So you have a 1 in 59 chance of being subject to a violent crime, and a 1 in 24 chance of being subject to property crime. No thanks.
I am confused. If the crime rate is so high there, why hasn’t Our Great Leader sent in the military to patrol it?
Might want to check the murder rates on the FBI site.
With a little help, he may be able to get our troops to Birmingham a little sooner.
Yah, but taxes are low! Lol
@thurd2 crime in almost every city is concentrated in a few “bad areas”. When I was living in Sf in the early 90’s OVER 50% of the murders in the entire city one year happened either in the Alice Griffith aka “Double Rock”Housing project in Hunters Point or within two blocks of the project (that was full of gang members). I have a friend that lives in Birmingham, AL near the Inverness Country Club in an area with close to zero crime (but other places in town you don’t want to go to at night). When I drove to visit a friend at his parents nice house on the lake in Milwaukee when I was in Chicago for business years ago I drove through a schetchy area and his Mom got mad at him for letting me take the Google maps directions through the tough part of town.
Let’s send in the National Guard and clean things up. Is it possible that that’s the real answer for the housing shortage?
Wolf, do you need a subscription to access this data? Personally interested in Jacksonville and Orlando. Thanks!
Btw, really surprise to not see Boise, ID on the list at all, let alone top 10. With the huge run up and their local income, one would think they would fall quite hard and fast, but guess not…weird…