Home prices losing steam

The U.S. housing market is close to stalling out, with prices in more than half the country’s top 100 housing markets now below their peak, according to the latest data from Intercontinental Exchange.

The annual nationwide price increase slowed to 1.3% in June, the slowest pace in two years and down from 1.6% the previous month, ICE’s indexes show. Out of the biggest 100 markets, 51 are now below-peak and almost one-third have fallen at least a percentage point from recent highs.

The weakness was most pronounced in the condo market, where prices fell 1.4% year-on-year compared with a 1.6% rise for single-family homes. Overall, national prices rose just 0.03% from the previous month after seasonal adjustment, “suggesting a propensity for further slowing,” ICE said. It described the market as “at a critical inflection point.”

Median prices have fallen more than $100,000 from their peak in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metro area in Texas, as well as in San Francisco, according to ICE.

Florida is home to nine of the 10 major markets that posted the biggest monthly drops in June. In two of them, North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota and Cape Coral-Fort Myers, prices peaked in June 2022 and are down by more than $50,000 since then.

Rule to keep medical debt off credit reports nixed

A federal judge in Texas removed a Biden-era finalized by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would have removed medical debt from credit reports.

U.S. District Court Judge Sean Jordan of Texas’ Eastern District, who was appointed by Trump, found on Friday that the rule exceeded the CFPB’s authority.

Jordan argued that the CFPB is not permitted to remove medical debt from credit reports according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which protects information collected by consumer reporting agencies.

— Boston Herald Wire Services