CEOs and CFOs are preparing for a recession in the U.S. in the next 12 to 18 months. The consumer price index, the most common measure of U.S. inflation, rose 8.2% from a year ago in September, below June’s 40-year high of 9.1%, but significantly higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% target rate. To get inflation under control, the Fed has indicated it will continue rate hikes.
Historically speaking, a housing recession is the first step to a Fed-induced recession, as Fortune has reported. The housing market has certainly taken a downturn. But who is feeling the most pain so far?
“Housing’s stunning downfall in one chart: Prices have plunged in 51 of these 60 cities, and there’s much further to fall,” a new report by Fortune’s Shawn Tully, answers that question. Ed Pinto, director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center, and one of the nation’s top experts on residential real estate, shared with Tully the price changes in America’s 60 largest metros, measured from their peaks through September. And 51 of the cities registered decreases, with the Western tier being hardest hit.
The top three cities that have seen the biggest declines: “San Jose suffered the biggest fall, tumbling 10.8% through September from its apex in April. The next top losers from their record highs are San Francisco (-8.5%), Seattle (-8.2%),” Tully writes. “In Seattle, for example, median prices stood at roughly $710,000 in April of 2021, then jumped 18% to crest at $840,000 in April of this year.”
Real estate is tied to hiring, retention, and the costs of operating your business as employees are weighing how much house they can afford. Along with homeowners, the future of the real estate market has implications for CFOs as well. Finance chiefs are deciding where to keep or part with office space as workplace patterns change.
In fact, the current macro-environment has made commercial real estate CFOs see revenues coming under…
