Oakland, Cape Coral, Austin, San Francisco, Denver, Tampa, Seattle, New York City, Saint Petersburg, Fort Myers, Sarasota,  Boise, Jacksonville, Detroit, New Orleans, Portland, Arlington (TX), Naples, Mesa, Aurora (CO), Reno, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Orlando, Garland

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Condo prices in Killeen, TX, a little over an hour north of Austin, have collapsed by 40% since the peak in mid-2022 and have given up the entire 52% spike from mid-2020 to mid-2022, plus some. The spike had been driven by FOMO-madness and the Fed’s Free Money policies. This is one of the fastest-growing cities around; its population has surged by 35% in the past 15 years to 160,000 in 2024.

But Killeen and other cities like this with condo markets in free-fall don’t qualify for our list here because they’re too small.

Several additional cities made it onto this list because the August price drop brought the total price drop from the peak to 12%, including Phoenix, AZ, and Orlando, FL.

Some of the markets on this list peaked in 2022, others peaked later. Arlington, TX, peaked in June 2024, and condo prices have since then dropped 14%, including another 0.7% in August.

The 25 bigger cities with price declines of 12% to 27% through August:

1. Oakland, CA: -27%
2. Cape Coral, FL: -27%
3. Austin, TX: -25%
4. Saint Petersburg, FL: -24%
5. Fort Myers, FL: -21%
6. Sarasota, FL: -20%
7. San Francisco, CA: -16%
8. Jacksonville, FL: -16%
9. Denver, CO: -15%
10. Naples, FL: -15%
11. Tampa, FL: -15%
12. Boise, ID: -14%
13. Detroit, MI: -14%
14. Arlington, TX: -14%
15. Seattle: -14%
16. New Orleans, LA: -13%
17. Reno, NV: -13%
18. Portland, OR: -13%
19. Aurora, CO: -13%
20. Mesa, AZ: -12%
21. Scottsdale, AZ: -13%.
22. New York City: -12%
23. Phoenix, AZ: -12%
24. Orlando, FL: -12%
25. Garland, TX: -12%

But from the beginning of 2020 through mid-2022 Condo prices had exploded in many of these cities by 50%, 60%, or more than 70%, in just two-and-a-half years, forming fantastic condo bubbles, and now these bubbles are deflating, visualized in the charts below.

What caused those bubbles was the astounding buying behavior of FOMO and investor-mania born out of the Free-Money era. When money is free, prices don’t matter. And mania rules. But money is no longer free.

The price explosion in 2020-2022 came on top of years of price surges, and combined, they blew all fuses: In the 10 years to the peak, prices exploded by 200% (Jacksonville, Tampa), by 260% (Arlington, TX), 300% (Detroit, Aurora, CO), or even 350% (Phoenix, Mesa, AZ).

Month-to-month, 22 of the 25 cities here experienced price declines in August from July (the exceptions: New York City, unchanged; New Orleans +0.1%; Boise +0.1%), topped off by these cities.

These month-to-month movements are not seasonal because the indexes are seasonally adjusted:

• Cape Coral: -1.9%
• Petersburg: -1.9%
• Fort Myers: -1.8%
• Oakland: -1.7%
• Sarasota: -1.3%
• Tampa: -1.3%
• Naples: -1.1%
• Jacksonville: -1.0%

Year-over-year, 23 of the 25 cities here experienced year-over-year price declines in August (exceptions: Boise unchanged, New York City +3.4%), topped off by:

• Petersburg: -15.4%
• Myers: -15.2%
• Arlington, TX: -14.0%
• Sarasota: -12.7%
• Oakland: -12.1%
• Jacksonville: -10.8%
• Naples: -10.1%
• Tampa: -10.0%
• Orlando: -9.7%
• Aurora, CO: 8.0%
• Denver: -7.7%

In some densely populated cities, such as San Francisco, condos often make up a bigger part of home sales than single-family homes.

Methodology and data: These prices here are seasonally adjusted three-month averages of “mid-tier” condos and co-ops in “cities” (not in Metropolitan Statistical Areas) 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 Condo Bust in pictures:

In the little tables for each city below, the metrics from left to right: price decline from the peak, change from prior month (MoM), change year-over-year (YoY), and remaining increase since January 2000.

The drops are not seasonal because the index is seasonally adjusted.

Oakland, CA, City, Condo Home Prices
From May 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-27%	-1.7%	-12.1%	156%

Lowest since December 2015, nearly 10 ago. In each of the last four months, prices dropped by 1.7% or 1.8%. That’s approaching a free-fall!

Cape Coral, FL, City, Condo Prices
From July 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-27%	-1.9%	-15.2%	149.6%

A fast dive, but it still only worked off two-thirds of the Free-Money FOMO-made spike.

Austin, TX, City, Condo Prices
From Jul 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-25%	-0.5%	-5.9%	113%

Lowest since April 2021.

Saint Petersburg, Fl, City, Condo Prices
From Oct 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-24%	-1.9%	-15%	198%

Still only back to September 2021. That 1.9% plunge in August followed a 2.0% plunge in July and a 1.8% plunge in June.

Fort Myers, FL, City, Condo Prices
From July 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-21%	-1.8%	-15%	138%

 

Sarasota, FL, City, Condo Prices
From Jul 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-20%	-1.3%	-12.7%	151.4%

Lowest since December 2021. That 1.3% drop in August followed a 1.5% drop in July, and a 1.3% drop in June.

San Francisco, CA, City, Condo Prices
From May 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-16%	-0.3%	-1.7%	139%

Lowest since February 2015.

Jacksonville, FL, City, Condo Prices
From Nov 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-16%	-1.0%	-10.8%	156%

Denver, CO, City, Condo Prices
From Jul 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-15%	-0.7%	-7.7%	138%

Lowest since May 2021.

Tampa, FL, City, Condo Prices
From Sep 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-15%	-1.3%	-10.0%	270%

Naples, FL City, Condo & Co-op Prices
From Aug 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-15%	-1.1%	-10.1%	161.1%

Lowest since February 2022.

In the two years to the peak, prices exploded by 73%, driven by FOMO-mad buyers and Free Money.

Seattle, WA, City Condo Prices
From Jun 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-14%	-0.5%	-5.1%	137%

Lowest since September 2017.

Boise, ID, City, Condo Prices
From Jun 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2001
-14%	0.1%	0%	221%

Detroit, MI, City, Condo Prices
From Sep 2021 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-14%	-0.4%	-3.3%	267%

Where prices had first been in November 2018.

Arlington, TX, City, Condo Prices
From Jun 2024 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-14%	-0.7%	-14.0%	239%

Back to April 2022. Half of the 262% price increase in the 10 years to June 2024 came during the four years from mid-2020 through mid-2024.

This is one of the few cities where the drop from the peak was faster than that portion of the rise to the peak.

 

Portland, OR, City, Condo Prices
From Jun 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-13%	-0.6%	-4.9%	110%

Lowest since June 2016.

New Orleans, LA, City, Condo Prices
From Jun 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-13%	0.1%	-1.7%	99%

Back to October 2021.

Reno, NV, City, Condo Prices
From Jun 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-13%	-0.7%	-3.3%	249%

Aurora, CO, City, Condo Prices
From Jul 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-13%	-1%	-8%	207%

Scottsdale, AZ, City, Condo Prices
From Jul 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-13%	-0.4%	-4.8%	197.1%

New York, NY, City Condo Prices
From Jul 2022	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-12%	0.0%	3.4%	225%

Back to late-2017. But over the past six months, prices have essentially not changed, after the spurt from January 2024 through February 2025.

Mesa, AZ, City, Condo Prices
From Aug 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-12%	-0.1%	-4.5%	209%

Phoenix, AZ, City, Condo Prices
From Aug 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-12%	-0.4%	-5.3%	238%

Orlando, FL, City, Condo Prices
From Jan 2024 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-12.0%	-1.0%	-9.7%	163.0%

Garland, TX, City, Condo Prices
From July 2022 peak	MoM	YoY	Since 2000
-12%	-0.4%	-4.8%	197.1%

Condos have some special issues on top of the issues that single-family homes face:

• Too-high prices that exploded over the past few years, driven by FOMO-mad buyers, including investors.
• Hefty special assessments for long-neglected big repairs.
• Brutal increases in HOA fees at many properties, in part driven by spiking insurance costs.
• Fannie Mae’s ever-expanding Condo Blacklist that makes financing a unit that is on it very difficult.
• The end of Free Money: Mortgage rates are roughly back to a normal range.
• Foreign-based owners who’ve had it and want to sell.
• Investors bailing out of condo rentals as they face competition from an onslaught of new higher-end apartment buildings that developers are trying to find tenants for.

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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