Overview
- Official gauges showed modest November gains, with FHFA up 0.6% month over month and 1.9% year over year, and Case‑Shiller up 1.4% annually and 0.4% on a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, while the non‑adjusted Case‑Shiller slipped 0.1% from October.
- Performance varied sharply by metro, led by Chicago (+5.7%), New York (+5.0%) and Cleveland (+3.4%), while Tampa (-3.9%), Phoenix (-1.4%) and Miami (-1.0%) posted annual declines.
- FHFA reported annual drops in the Pacific and Mountain divisions and a 5.1% gain in the East North Central region, highlighting a widening geographic divergence.
- Thirty‑year mortgage rates hovered near 6.09%, keeping affordability tight as S&P noted price gains are running about 1.3 percentage points below inflation.
- The administration restricted institutional single‑family purchases and began buying mortgage‑backed securities to ease borrowing costs, but experts see limited near‑term effects and characterize 2026 as a localized transition year, with FHFA’s next update due Feb. 24.