The Correction Nobody's Talking About
Home prices nationally are up 54% since 2019. That's the number everyone quotes — and it's true. But buried inside that stat is a different story: dozens of major metros have been quietly losing value since their peak. Some have been falling for over three years.
Austin, TX peaked at $554,000 in June 2022. Today it's $420,000. That's a 24.3% decline — $135,000 gone. San Francisco peaked at $1.2 million and has shed $119,000. Cape Coral, FL has dropped 17.5%. Phoenix is down 10%. These aren't tiny corrections. These are six-figure losses for anyone who bought at the top.
The Biggest Drops From Peak: Major Metros
| Metro | Peak Price | Peak Date | Jan 2026 | % Drop | $ Lost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austin, TX | $554k | Jun 2022 | $420k | -24.3% | -$135k |
| Cape Coral, FL | $408k | Aug 2022 | $337k | -17.5% | -$71k |
| North Port, FL | $477k | Aug 2022 | $400k | -16.1% | -$77k |
| New Orleans, LA | $290k | Jul 2022 | $253k | -12.7% | -$37k |
| Naples, FL | $622k | Mar 2024 | $551k | -11.3% | -$70k |
| Phoenix, AZ | $492k | Jul 2022 | $442k | -10.1% | -$50k |
| San Francisco, CA | $1,209k | Jun 2022 | $1,090k | -9.9% | -$119k |
| San Antonio, TX | $301k | Aug 2022 | $274k | -8.9% | -$27k |
| Tampa, FL | $382k | May 2024 | $352k | -7.9% | -$30k |
| Boise City, ID | $520k | Jun 2022 | $479k | -7.8% | -$40k |
| Denver, CO | $602k | Jun 2022 | $559k | -7.1% | -$43k |
| Dallas, TX | $385k | Aug 2022 | $358k | -7.0% | -$27k |
| Sacramento, CA | $607k | Jun 2022 | $566k | -6.9% | -$42k |
| Colorado Springs, CO | $479k | Jul 2022 | $448k | -6.4% | -$31k |
| Miami, FL | $502k | May 2025 | $467k | -6.9% | -$35k |
The Pattern: Three Waves of Declines
Looking at the peak dates tells you the story:
Wave 1 — Mid-2022 peaks: Austin, Phoenix, Boise, San Francisco, Denver, Dallas, San Antonio, Sacramento, Colorado Springs. These are the pandemic boomtowns that ran hardest and fastest. Remote work fueled a migration wave, prices spiked, and then rates hit 7% and the music stopped. Most peaked between June and August 2022 — right as rates crossed 5% and started heading toward 7%.
Wave 2 — 2023-2024 peaks: Naples, Tampa, Port St. Lucie. Southwest Florida had a delayed peak, partially because cash buyers and retirees kept the market running longer than rate-sensitive markets. But insurance costs, HOA increases, and a flood of new construction eventually caught up.
Wave 3 — 2025 peaks: Miami peaked as recently as May 2025. Some markets are just now tipping over. These are the metros where the correction is newest and may have further to fall.
Austin: The Poster Child
No metro tells the story better than Austin. The typical home went from $279k in 2019 to $554k in June 2022 — nearly doubling in three years. Then it began falling. Slowly at first, then more consistently. By January 2026, it's $420k. That's a $134,000 decline from peak — the largest dollar drop of any major metro by percentage.
Austin's decline was driven by a perfect storm: massive overbuilding (Austin permitted more new housing per capita than almost any other major metro), the end of the pandemic remote work migration, and rate sensitivity — Austin's buyer base skewed younger and more dependent on financing than cash-heavy markets like Miami.
Even after the 24% drop, Austin is still up 51% from 2019. If you bought in 2019, you're fine. If you bought in 2022, you're underwater.
Florida: Insurance and Reality Catch Up
Five of the top 15 drops from peak are in Florida. Cape Coral (-17.5%), North Port (-16.1%), Naples (-11.3%), Tampa (-7.9%). The common thread: soaring insurance costs. Florida homeowners insurance premiums have roughly tripled since 2019 in many counties. When your insurance goes from $2,000/year to $6,000/year, that eats directly into what buyers can afford — which drags down prices.
Add in rising HOA fees, a wave of new construction delivering into a softening market, and the lingering effects of Hurricane Ian, and Southwest Florida's correction starts to make structural sense.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Most of these metros are still significantly above their 2019 levels. Austin at $420k is still 51% above its 2019 price of $279k. Phoenix at $442k is still 60% above $276k. The "correction" has only erased a fraction of the pandemic-era gains.
For buyers hoping for a crash back to 2019 prices: that's not happening. For sellers who bought at the peak: the loss is real, and in some markets it's getting worse, not better. For everyone else: these drops are a sign that the market can correct — it's just doing it slowly, painfully, and unevenly.
Data: Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), smoothed and seasonally adjusted, middle tier. Monthly data from Jan 2019 through Jan 2026. Peak identified as the highest monthly value for each metro. See also: The Housing Market Doesn't Have to Be Frozen