On a year-over-year basis, the Case-Shiller Index, regarded as a leading indicator of U.S. home prices, reported a 0.3% annual decrease in April, down from a gain of 0.7% in March 2023. Click through for more on the index and expert insights on the results of this month’s index.

“Housing's performance is a testimony to the strength of demographic-related demand in the face of baby boomers aging in place and Gen-Xers locking in historically low rates,” noted Doug Duncan, SVP and Chief Economist for Fannie Mae.

Realtor.com has updated their forecast for the year, now saying mortgage rates could drop to 6% by the year’s end, but inventory woes are not likely to improve and could drop to numbers last seen in 2012.

NAR reports that existing-home sales recorded a slight gain of 0.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.3 million units.

“After last quarter’s historic high of 2.47%, the reduction in Q4’s critical defect rate to a sub-2% level is encouraging and illustrates just how much the precipitous drop in origination volumes impacted lending operations,” said ACES EVP Nick Volpe.

The first month of the typically hot summer buying season produced less than stellar available home numbers, falling over 7% to a new record low.

“Single-family rent growth has slowed for a full year, and overall gains are approaching pre-pandemic rates,” said Molly Boesel, Principal Economist at CoreLogic.

The numbers are in from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the news is good—at least on a short-term scale.

“Overall credit performance remains solid for higher credit quality borrowers, but that is in an economy with unemployment rates below 4%,” Freddie Mac said in their report.

A small study of mortgage professionals found that many of those surveyed are living paycheck to paycheck as the result of inflation, high interest rates, fewer deals, and other job uncertainties.