ICE: Home Prices Cool Heading into Spring Home-Buying Season
(Illustrations courtesy of ICE)
Intercontinental Exchange found a “notable cooling” in home price growth as the 2025 spring home buying season begins.
Annual home price growth has decelerated to 2.2%, an early look at March data from the ICE Home Price Index reported.
“Analysis of ICE HPI data shows a broad-based cooling of home prices, with 90% percent of U.S. markets experiencing slower home price growth compared to three months ago,” said Andy Walden, head of mortgage and housing market research for ICE. He noted the trend is driven by improved inventory levels, which are up 27% over last year, and stabilized mortgage rates, which dipped below 6.6% in early March.
“Early March data shows condo prices dropping for the first time in more than a decade, with the largest impacts in the Sunbelt, most notably in Florida,” Walden added. “While falling condo prices can erode equity levels among existing condo owners, they also afford modest relief to those looking to prospective home buyers. In fact, 95% of U.S. markets have experienced at least slight improvements in affordability compared to a year ago.”
Other key findings from the April Mortgage Monitor report:
• Home prices are softening across the country: Annual home price growth slowed to +2.7% in February, with early data for March showing further cooling to +2.2%.
• Condo prices decreased annually for the first time in more than a decade: Condo prices lagged single family price growth in 97 of the 100 largest U.S. markets and were down in more than a third of those markets.
• Florida condo prices dropped the most: Markets such as North Port (-9.4%) and Lakeland (-7%) saw significant YoY price slips, with other markets, including Tampa (-5.8%), Orlando (-4.4%), Jacksonville (-4.4%) and Miami (-2.8%) not too far behind.
• Florida’s homeowners face some unique challenges: Back-to-back hurricanes, combined with rising property insurance costs, insurability challenges, slowing migration and new construction have combined to lower home prices in most major Florida markets.
• Condo challenges aren’t limited to Florida: A surge in multifamily completions has created price pressure across the country, especially in metro regions such as Little Rock, Ark. (-6%), Austin, Texas (-5.6%), and Denver (-3.9%).
