By coinnews 
00:00:00 Brad Smith
Home prices are at historic highs and the latest read from the S&P Case-Shiller National Home Price Index shows that potential buyers have had a tough road ahead here. Here to break down the report, we’ve got Yahoo Finance senior housing reporter Claire Boston. Claire, what is the latest movement on home prices right now?
00:00:25 Claire Boston
Hi Brad. So in March, we saw a 3.4% annual gain nationally, compared to a year earlier. And that is actually down a little bit from a 4% gain in February. So we’re still seeing that home prices are still rising, but that rate of growth is slowing a little bit. And this 3.4% number was a little bit of a bigger deceleration than economists were expecting. One other thing I’m looking at right now is that month over month, prices actually fell a little bit, just 0.3% down nationally. But that’s another sign here that the market is slowing a bit even though things are still very, very expensive.
00:01:21 Brad Smith
Do you think this is going to impact the spring and summer home buying season, which I guess we’re kind of in the unofficial start of summer as of right now.
00:01:38 Claire Boston
Yeah, so this data is from March. And so if you remember back in March, we had not yet had that tariff surprise. Um, we do have a little bit more data about what spring home buying is looking like. And a lot of signs point to a pretty slowing market. So potentially, in the months ahead, we may continue to see that deceleration, you know, maybe a little bit even of a price move down month over month.
00:02:15 Brad Smith
Some more data here. Zillow and Redfin, they both expect home values to decline by about 1% this year. Are buyers better off waiting?
00:02:34 Claire Boston
You know, it is really hard to tell. Um, you know, something I talk about all the time is how regional the housing market is. Um, and you know, when you’re looking at this Case-Shiller data, places like New York, home prices are up 8%. Chicago is up more than close to 6%. Uh, but then you look at a place like Tampa and prices are down. So it really depends on where you are and what your market is doing. And um, you know, it it just it’s hard to tell right now. It’s a weird market.
00:03:17 Brad Smith
Claire, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
00:03:21 Claire Boston
Thank you.