The FHFA and S&P Case Shiller published home price index data last week for the month of November.  Both showed moderate month-over-month declines offset by still-high year-over-year numbers.  Today's CoreLogic home price data paints a similar picture (but for the month of December) with a modest 0.4% decline month-over-month and a 6.9% annual growth rate. 6.9% is still on the higher end of historical norms from before the post-pandemic boom, but CoreLogic goes a step farther by updating forecasts in addition to the hard data.  The firm sees next month's year-over-year number dropping to +3.0%.  Bad news, right?! Not so fast...  We have to remember the economic phenomenon of "base effects."  This means that annual numbers can and will change--sometimes substantially--just because data from 12 months ago falls out of a calculation.  So while this month's year-over-year number includes last December, next month's won't.  If last December was a strong month (it was), that would make the new year-over-year number look like it fell a lot.   Interestingly enough, the same forecast that delivers the big drop in annual price appreciation also shows a slowdown in price losses with January only seen losing 0.2% to December's 0.4%. The slowdown is more evident in Western states.  The following chart shows the percent change in prices vs last year.  All Western states came in under the 5% mark (and Idaho was the lone state that posted a decline).