US home prices rise 2.1% in August from a year earlier, Case-Shiller says

US home prices rose 2.1% in August from a year earlier, up from 1.9% in July, according to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Indices. With consumer prices up 3.4%, home values fell after adjusting for inflation for a 15th straight month.

What happened

The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which covers all nine US census divisions, rose 2.1% in August from August 2025, S&P Dow Jones Indices said in its release on Tuesday. The 10-City Composite rose 3.6%, after a 3.4% gain in July, and the 20-City Composite rose 2.7%, after 2.5%.

Chicago had the largest annual gain among the 20 cities at 6.7%, followed by New York at 6.2% and Cleveland at 4.3%. Seattle had the largest decline, at 2.0%, ahead of Las Vegas at 1.3% and Denver at 0.8%. The gap between the strongest and weakest city was 8.7 percentage points (computed).

Before seasonal adjustment, the national index fell 0.2% in August from July, and both the 10-City and 20-City Composites fell 0.4%. After seasonal adjustment, the national index rose 0.3%, the 10-City Composite 0.4% and the 20-City Composite 0.3%.

S&P DJI published no August figure for Detroit. It said delays in transaction records from the Wayne County recording office affected the data, and it provided a valid July update instead.

Why it matters

The release said August's 3.4% inflation ran roughly 1.3 percentage points above the 2.1% home price gain. The inflation rate was the same as in July.

"U.S. home prices declined in real terms for the 15th consecutive month in August 2026, though the gap narrowed as nominal home price growth strengthened," said Rebecca Kaufman, Associate Director of Commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Kaufman also said that seasonality continued to weigh on the monthly results. She said the difference between the adjusted and unadjusted figures "suggests that the typical post-summer slowdown is obscuring some underlying strength in home prices."

A separate gauge pointed the same way. The Federal Housing Finance Agency said its seasonally adjusted House Price Index rose 0.3% in August from July and 2.4% from August 2025, according to the agency's news release listing. The FHFA index and Case-Shiller use different methods and samples, so their annual rates differ.

What to watch

S&P DJI publishes the indices on the last Tuesday of each month at 9:00 a.m. ET, according to the methodology note in its release. Under that rule the September data would be due on November 24 (computed).

The release said the indices could be revised for the prior 24 months, so earlier readings, including July's, may change. Detroit's August value remains missing until S&P DJI receives the delayed transaction data, and the release said it would keep providing updates to Detroit index values for the months with missing sale transactions data.

The national index tracks the value of single-family housing and is a composite of single-family home price indices for the nine census divisions, according to the release's methodology note. It has a base value of 100 in January 2000.