Housing Price Appreciation Cooling Slightly

Housing Price Appreciation Cooling Slightly

The housing price appreciation boom isn’t dead, it’s shifting to new real estate markets. Arizona and Florida are on fire, but San Diego and Boston — once the hottest markets in the country — are now distinctly moving into a cooling phase.

The third quarter appreciation report issued by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) last Wednesday documented a modest decline in the national average annual appreciation rate — 12 percent versus 14 percent last quarter. But the report also identified a new batch of leaders in house price growth: Arizona, where the average home soared a stunning 30 percent in resale value between the third quarter of 2004 and the same period this year, and Florida, which now accounts for 11 of the top 20 fastest-appreciating metropolitan real estate markets in the U.S.