Exclusive | US home prices are finally cooling but a Mid-Atlantic region just surged 6.3%
Think the housing market is finally giving buyers a break? Not around one East Coast region.Home prices across the US rose a relatively modest 2.6% over the past year, but New York and its neighbors are stubbornly bucking the slowdown, according to new federal data.Prices across a Middle-Atlantic region — New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — surged 6.3% from July 2025 to July 2026, the biggest increase of any region in the country, according to the latest House Price Index from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.And buyers hoping the region is finally starting to cool aren’t getting much relief yet.Home prices in the three-state area jumped another 1.5% in July alone, five times the 0.3% increase nationwide and once again the largest gain among the country’s nine census divisions.The numbers paint a strikingly different picture from the one emerging in some other corners of the country, where the pandemic-era housing boom has increasingly given way to slower price growth — and, in some cases, outright declines.Nowhere is that contrast clearer than in the Mountain West.Prices across the Mountain division — Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — fell 0.8% in July, marking the weakest monthly performance of any region in the country.Over the past year, prices there managed to rise just 0.6%, also the smallest increase nationwide.That means homes in New York’s three-state region appreciated at more than 10 times the annual pace seen in the Mountain West.The divide is particularly notable after years in which pandemic-era migration helped fuel housing booms across many Western markets, as buyers sought more space and took advantage of remote work.But the latest FHFA figures suggest there’s no longer one national housing market moving in lockstep.Across the country as a whole, home prices increased 0.3% between June and July, after remaining flat the month before.
On an annual basis, prices were up 2.6%.Every US cen...