S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Index Posts 1.9% Annual Gain as Real Values Fall

S&P Dow Jones Indices released the July 2026 results for the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Indices on September 29, 2026, reporting a 1.9% annual gain in the U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, which covers all nine U.S. census divisions, up from a 1.6% rise in the previous month. U.S. home values fell in real terms for the 14th consecutive month, as July’s 3.4% inflation ran roughly 1.5 percentage points above the 1.9% home price gain.

The 10-City Composite saw an annual increase of 3.4% for July, up from a 3.0% increase in the previous month, while the 20-City Composite posted a year-over-year increase of 2.5%, up from a 2.2% rise. July 2026 index levels stood at 337.31 for the U.S. National Index, 373.86 for the Composite-10 and 350.36 for the Composite-20, per the release’s data tables.

Rebecca Kaufman, Associate Director of Commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said slightly lower inflation and stronger nominal home price appreciation helped narrow the gap between consumer price growth and home price growth in July. Consumer prices posted a 3.4% annual gain in July, down slightly from 3.5% in June, she said. Much of the inflation increase was concentrated in energy, with energy and gasoline prices rising 14.7% and 24.6%, respectively, while core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose 2.5% year over year. “This distinction is important because persistent inflation in shelter and other core categories tends to have a more direct impact on housing affordability than energy-driven price fluctuations,” Kaufman said.

Before seasonal adjustment, the U.S. National and 10-City Composite Indices recorded monthly gains of 0.12% and 0.03%, respectively, while the 20-City Composite posted a 0.01% decrease. After seasonal adjustment, the National, 10-City and 20-City Composite Indices posted gains of 0.3%, 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively.

Kaufman described the relationship between the two data sets as “a notable departure from typical seasonal patterns,” with the non-seasonally adjusted National and Composite indices recording monthly gains smaller than their seasonally adjusted counterparts, a pattern she said suggests seasonal factors weighed heavily on home prices in July. Among individual metros, July-over-June changes before seasonal adjustment ranged from a 0.97% gain in Cleveland and a 0.52% rise in New York to a 0.61% decline in San Francisco and a 0.46% drop in Seattle.

Regional Divergence Across the 20 Metro Markets

Chicago reported the highest annual gain among the 20 cities in July with a 6.9% increase, leading all metros for the fifth consecutive month, followed by New York at 5.8% and Cleveland at 4.2%, Kaufman said. Seattle posted the largest annual decline for the second consecutive month, falling 1.6%, followed by Las Vegas, down 1.3%, and Denver, down 1.1%. A nearly 9 percentage point gap separated July’s strongest and weakest markets.

Elsewhere in the 20-city table, one-year changes included Miami up 3.53%, San Francisco up 3.48%, Boston up 2.68%, Washington up 2.16%, Minneapolis up 1.72%, San Diego up 1.63% and Los Angeles up 1.24%, while Atlanta, Charlotte and Phoenix recorded gains of 0.28%, 0.29% and 0.05%, respectively. Dallas fell 0.44%, Portland fell 0.65% and Tampa fell 0.73% over the same period.

Kaufman said a years-long East-West divide persisted in July, with six of the eight Eastern metropolitan markets recording greater year-over-year changes in July versus June, compared with two of the eight Western metropolitan markets.

Detroit Data Delay, Revisions and Index Construction

Cotality continues to experience transaction delays from the recording office in Wayne County, the most populous county in the Detroit metro area, and those delays affected July transaction data. As a result, no valid July 2026 update of the Detroit S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Index is provided for the September 29, 2026 release date, although enough data existed to calculate a valid June 2026 update, which appears in the release’s tables. S&P DJI said it will continue to provide updates to the Detroit index values for the months with missing sale transaction data.

The indices could be revised for the prior 24 months based on the receipt of additional source data, according to the release. A peak-and-trough table shows the National index reached a peak of 308.07 in June 2022 before falling to a trough of 292.68 in January 2023, a 5.0% decline from the peak; the index stands 15.0% above that trough and 9.3% above the 2022 peak. The 10-City Composite stands 13.0% above its June 2022 peak and the 20-City Composite 9.9% above its own.

The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Indices are published on the last Tuesday of each month at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time, and more than 27 years of history are available for the data series. Each index combines matched price pairs for thousands of individual houses from the available universe of arms-length sales data, and the indices carry a base value of 100 in January 2000; an index value of 150, for example, translates to a 50% appreciation rate since January 2000 for a typical home in the subject market. The U.S. National Home Price Index is a composite of single-family home price indices for the nine census divisions and is calculated quarterly, while the 10-City and 20-City Composites are value-weighted averages of their respective metro area indices. The headline indices use non-seasonally adjusted data, which the release said markets have followed and reported on since early 2006, while a seasonally adjusted data set is published for analytical purposes covering the headline indices, 17 of the 20 markets with tiered price indices and five tracked condo markets. The indices are produced by Cotality, Inc., and generated and published under agreements between S&P Dow Jones Indices and Cotality.