Does Housing Hold UP?

No – but here’s the answer – right off the press release:

Year-Over-Year

• The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 1.4% annual gain in October, up from 1.3% the previous month.
• The 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 1.9%, down from 2.0% the previous month. The 20-City Composite posted a 1.3% year-over-year gain, down from 1.4% in the previous month.
• Chicago, New York and Cleveland reported the highest year-over-year gains with year-over-year price increases of 5.8%, 5.0% and 4.1%, respectively.
• Tampa posted the smallest year-over-year growth of 4.2%.

Month-over-Month

• The National Index posted a -0.2% month-over-month decrease while the 20-City and 10-City Composites posted decreases of -0.3% and -0.2% before seasonal adjustment in October 2025.
• After seasonal adjustment, the National Index posted a 0.4% increase while the 20-City and 10-City Composites both posted increases of 0.3%.

Historical

• Measured from its June 2006 peak, the 10-City Composite is up 57.8%.
• The 20-City Composite has eclipsed its July 2006 peak by 63.3%.
• The National Index is up 77.9% from its July 2006 peak.

“October’s data shows the housing market settling into a much slower gear, with the National Composite Index up only about 1.4% year- over-year, among the weakest performances since mid-2023,” says Nicholas Godec, Head of Fixed Income Tradables & Commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices. ““For context, this is the weakest annual home price growth since the March through July 2023 period, when the market was absorbing the initial shock of the Fed’s rapid rate hikes. Today’s headwinds appear more entrenched. Elevated mortgage rates, paired with inflation that continues to outpace home price gains, have intensified affordability pressures, potentially setting a new equilibrium of minimal price appreciation or, in some markets, outright declines.”

Here is the key part for us:

When the annual increasde isd 1.4 percent (which sounds good) you have to back out inflation because these are not inflation=adjuisted.

We think when people wake up to this reality, the economy will be in for very tough sledding, indeed.

To help you remember:

• Reported housing gains LESS CPI inflation is about where “real” lives.
• The Commercial Real Estate problem hasn’t been solved.
• Inflation is there if precious metals are any indicator.

After the data, markets were holding even, but silver was up more than $5 bucks.

So, yeah.  Batten ’em down in ’26.

The rest of today’s column is here: Silver Book-talking, What to Buy in ’26, Testing Gluten-Free, Housing Follows

~ure