3 Reasons Home Prices Will Fall By 50%...Or More

The US housing market is in the midst of a major shift. After two years of stratospheric price appreciation, home prices have peaked and are on their way back down.

But what homebuyers and homeowners alike want to know is: How much lower will prices go?

The short answer: Prices are likely to drop further, but not by as much as they did during the housing bust. From the 2006 peak to the 2012 trough, national home prices fell by 27%, according to S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, which measures US home prices.
“It was different in 2008, 2009 because that drop in prices was because of a push from sellers,” said Jeff Tucker, senior economist at Zillow. “Because of foreclosures and short sales there were a lot of extremely motivated sellers who were willing to take a loss on their homes.”

Plus, that housing crash came at a time when the inventory of homes for sale was four times higher than it is now. Current inventory is still substantially lower than pre-pandemic levels, which has increased competition for homes. And that is keeping prices relatively strong.

“I would be surprised to see prices anywhere drop below where they were in 2019,” said Tucker. “There was some overheating in the housing market in 2021 through this spring that pushed prices higher than what the fundamentals would support. Now they are coming down.”