U.S. metros are seeing slower home price growth

Home price growth is slowing in almost half of the major U.S. housing markets.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area was called out by researchers at Attom Data Solutions as one of the areas where home appreciation is decelerating after years of value gains.

North Texas home prices were less than 6 percent higher in the third quarter than they were in the same period last year, Attom Data found. In third quarter 2017, D-FW home prices were up more than 12 percent annually.

Along with D-FW, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Miami were identified as markets where home cost increases are also dwindling.

“The continued slowdown in the rate of home price appreciation nationwide and in many local markets is a rational response to worsening home affordability — which has deteriorated at an accelerated pace this year due to rising mortgage rates,” Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at Attom Data Solutions, said in the report. “Markets not experiencing this price appreciation cool down may have more of an affordability cushion to work with, but some are in danger of overheating if home price gains continue to run hot.”

The D-FW area has had the largest percentage increase of home prices of any U.S. metro area. North Texas median home prices are now 86 percent ahead of where they were a decade ago before the housing market crash, Attom Data says. Houston and San Antonio are also on the list of cities that have seen the greatest residential appreciation since the Great Recession. Median home prices are now higher than they were before the economic downturn in almost 70 percent of the markets Attom Data tracks. And the rate of home price appreciation is still accelerating in some metro areas, including San Jose; Boise, Idaho; Las Vegas; San Francisco and Atlanta, the latest housing study finds.