The national housing market just posted its weakest price growth in nearly 15 years. Median home prices rose only 0.5% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, landing at $404,300, according to the National Association of Realtors’ quarterly metro report released in early May. According to NAR’s historical quarterly series, that is the slimmest gain the index has recorded since 2011, when the market was still digging out of the foreclosure crisis.
Two Florida metros absorbed the sharpest blows. Cape Coral-Fort Myers, the Gulf Coast region still rebuilding after Hurricane Ian’s devastation in late 2022, saw its median price fall 9% from a year earlier. Tampa-St. Petersburg, one of the Southeast’s largest metros, dropped 3.6%. Both markets posted double-digit annual gains as recently as 2022, when remote workers and investors flooded the Sun Belt. That era now looks like a distant chapter.
A national cooldown with deep local fractures
Across the 226 metro areas NAR tracks, 71% still posted price increases in Q1. Flip that figure, though, and nearly three in ten metros recorded flat or falling values. During the pandemic boom, that ratio would have been almost unthinkable.
The 0.5% national gain barely keeps pace with inflation, meaning many homeowners are losing purchasing power even as their home’s sticker price edges upward. For context, NAR’s quarterly data showed national year-over-year appreciation exceeding 15% in several quarters spanning late 2021 and early 2022. The deceleration since then has been steady, but the Q1 2026 reading is the moment the trend line went nearly flat…