home prices are still higher than they were a year ago but continued to cool very quickly in july prices nationally rose 158 over july 2021 and while that is a wide gain it was well below the 181 gain in the previous month according to the sp corelogic caseshiller indices the 10city composite rose 149 year over year down from 174 in june the 20city composite gained 161 down from 187 in the previous month julys yearoveryear gains were lower compared with june in each of the cities covered by the index julys report reflects a forceful deceleration wrote craig j lazzara managing director at sp dji in a release noting the difference in the annual gains in june and july the 23 difference between those two monthly rates of gain is the largest deceleration in the history of the index tampa miami and dallas saw the highest annual gains among the 20 cities in july with increases of 318 317 and 247 respectively washington dc minneapolis and san francisco saw the smallest gains but were still well above yearago levels another report from the national association of realtors showed home prices softening dramatically from june to july prices usually fall during that time due to the strong seasonality of the housing market but the decline was three times the average decline historically the share of homes with price cuts reached about 20 in august the same as in 2017 according to realtorcom for homeowners planning to list todays market is significantly different than the one from even 3 weeks ago said george ratiu senior economist  manager of economic research for realtorcom home prices are dropping because affordability has weakened dramatically due to fastrising mortgage rates the average rate on the popular 30year fixed mortgage started this year around 3 but by june had briefly surpassed 6 it remained in the high 5 range throughout july and is now edging toward 7 making the average monthly payment about 70 higher than it was a year ago as the federal reserve continues to move interest rates upward mortgage financing has become more expensive a process that continues to this day given the prospects for a more challenging macroeconomic environment home prices may well continue to decelerate lazzara said