The US housing slump stretched into a fifth month, sending a measure of prices down 2.5% from a peak in June.
Prices also fell roughly 0.3% in November from a month before, according to a seasonally adjusted data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller.
The Seattle-area housing market remained one of the fastest-cooling in the nation.
Home prices here dropped 1.5% from October to November, the sixth straight month of decline. That was the fourth largest month-to-month drop among the 20 cities the Case-Shiller Index tracks.
Compared to a year earlier, Seattle prices were still up 1.5%, but that was the smallest year-over-year jump of the 20 cities. Only San Francisco was cooler, with prices dipping 1.6% year-over-year.
The index, which lags by two months, tracks single-family home prices in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties.
Seattle-area prices dropped nearly 12% from June to November.
Last year’s run-up in mortgage rates cast a chill on the housing market, leading to the worst annual slide in sales of previously owned homes in more than a decade.
That’s pressured prices, particularly in parts of the country such as San Francisco where affordability was already stretched.
“As the Federal Reserve moves interest rates higher, mortgage financing continues to be a headwind for home prices,” Craig Lazzara, managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “Economic weakness, including the possibility of a recession, would also constrain potential buyers. Given these prospects for a challenging macroeconomic environment, home prices may well continue to weaken.”
Prices are still higher than a year ago as homeowners benefit from the ripple effects of an extended pandemic boom that broke records in many parts of the US. Growth, however, has been slowing.
In recent weeks, borrowing costs have eased, with the average on a 30-year fixed mortgage dropping to 6.13% in late January, according to Freddie Mac. Brokerage and data company Redfin Corp. recently pointed to signs that buyer interest might be picking up again, with pending deals on the rise in December and other measures of demand climbing.
Information from Seattle Times real estate reporter Heidi Groover is included in this report.