Price growth’s re-accelerating in the US housing market, according to the marquee measures of national property values.

In the interest of accuracy, I should say price growth was re-accelerating. Past tense. It probably still is, but we can’t say for sure because the Case-Shiller gauges are reported on what, if I might be so brazen, often feels like an untenably long delay in an era of instantaneous information.

Tuesday’s update found the 20-city measure posting a 1.63% YoY advance for May, up meaningfully from April’s annual pace and almost double March’s.

Even without the green annotation, you can see the uptick pretty clearly in the figure. If you’re under 45, you may not even have to squint.

There’s a ton of nuance here. Most obviously, price growth’s nowhere near the 2013-2019 average, to say nothing of the bonanza that accompanied the pandemic. Relatedly, property price appreciation’s still trailing headline inflation handily, which is to say real housing wealth’s in reverse.

The figure below, updated with today’s Case-Shiller figures, shows you the inflation-adjusted growth trend.

Real home values using the 20-city measure adjusted with the BLS’s all-items CPI gauge have contracted for a year straight.

You can spin that as a positive development to the extent it means homes are getting incrementally more affordable. When home price growth undershoots headline CPI, it generally undershoots wage growth too. That’s certainly the case in 2026.

The problem’s glaringly obvious: That’s a glacial process, and with nominal home values at record highs and mortgage rates loitering near enough to 7%, it’s little short of ludicrous to suggest that dynamic, on its own, can solve America’s housing crisis.

Throw in the fact that wage growth, despite outstripping home price appreciation, is undershooting headline inflation thanks to the war, and the situation’s just hopeless for too many people.

Rebecca Kaufman, Associate Director of Commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices, didn’t dance around the issues on Tuesday. “Ultra-low borrowing costs [are] a distant memory and stubbornly high inflation rates are keeping both the cost of home financing and the cost of living high for prospective buyers,” she said.

In the same editorial, Kaufman described the current conjuncture as akin to the worst of all possible worlds. “Housing demand remains constrained,” buyers are “discourage[d]” and home values are “declin[ing] in real terms for existing homeowners,” she sighed.