The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index for April 2026 prints Tuesday July 1 at 9:00 ET alongside the FHFA House Price Index for the same month. The reads are the first two housing data points of the second half and land against a CME FedWatch September cut probability at 93 percent, a 2-year yield at 3.62 percent on the June 27 close, and a core-CPI to core-PCE wedge that has compressed from 41 basis points in November 2025 to 9 basis points in the May 2026 print.

The eighteen-month wedge and what closed it

The gap between core CPI year-over-year and core PCE year-over-year ran an average of 35 basis points from July 2024 through December 2025 with core CPI on the upside. The single largest contributor was owners equivalent rent, which carries a 26.8 percent weight in headline CPI and a 10.9 percent weight in headline PCE. Core CPI weights OER at 33.7 percent. Core PCE weights OER at 13.5 percent. A one percentage point difference in the OER print carries roughly 20 basis points more into core CPI than into core PCE.

The OER series ran 5.7 percent year-over-year at the January 2025 peak and printed 3.8 percent in the May 2026 CPI release, the tenth consecutive monthly deceleration. The new-tenant-repeat rent index the BLS publishes as an experimental series ran negative 1.2 percent year-over-year in Q1 2026, a reading that has historically led the OER series by twelve to fifteen months. The market-rent turn dated to late 2023 in the Cleveland Fed adjusted-rent series and to early 2024 in the Zillow observed-rent series. The eighteen-month calendar lag placed the OER floor between May and August 2026.

The Case-Shiller series through the past two years

The March 2024 print carried a headline year-over-year of 6.5 percent against a monthly pace of 0.7 percent seasonally adjusted. The series peaked there and rolled through a twelve-month deceleration sequence:

  • September 2024: 4.8 percent year-over-year, monthly at 0.3 percent seasonally adjusted.
  • March 2025: 3.9 percent year-over-year, monthly at 0.2 percent.
  • September 2025: 3.4 percent year-over-year, monthly at 0.1 percent.
  • March 2026: 2.9 percent year-over-year, monthly at 0.0 percent seasonally adjusted, the first flat month-over-month print since February 2023.

The 20-City composite ran two tenths above the National composite through the deceleration and printed 3.1 percent in the March release. The 10-City composite ran three tenths above and printed 3.2 percent. The tighter markets on the coasts held a small premium against the National average through the entire deceleration, a pattern that reversed the 2022 to 2023 configuration where the Sun Belt cities led the National composite.

The FHFA series and the coverage difference

The FHFA House Price Index covers repeat-sales transactions on conforming mortgages and captures a broader footprint than Case-Shiller, which restricts to detached single-family homes in the twenty metro areas of the composite. The FHFA series held a small premium to Case-Shiller through the deceleration because conforming-loan-limit homes carry lower price volatility than the Case-Shiller top-quintile tier.

The February 2026 FHFA print carried year-over-year at 3.6 percent, seven tenths above the March Case-Shiller National at 2.9 percent. The gap has held between 60 and 80 basis points since the deceleration began. The March FHFA printed at 3.4 percent in May and the April print tomorrow carries a consensus of 3.2 percent year-over-year and 0.1 percent month-over-month.

What the April Case-Shiller print does to the OER math

The transmission from Case-Shiller to OER runs through the imputed rental value of owner-occupied housing. The BLS constructs OER by weighting sample rents from the rental-housing tape and applying the composition to the owner-occupied stock. The Case-Shiller series is not a direct input to OER but the price series and the rent series historically converge on a two-to-three-year lag under stable interest rate conditions.

The line the strip is carrying into the April print:

  • A Case-Shiller National print at 2.5 percent or lower year-over-year with a monthly reading at zero or negative confirms the March moderation and pulls the OER Q3 track from the 3.6 to 3.8 percent band into the 3.3 to 3.5 percent band by the September CPI release. The core-CPI to core-PCE wedge closes to zero by October.
  • A Case-Shiller print at 3.2 percent or higher year-over-year with a monthly reading at 0.2 percent or higher re-accelerates the housing series and pulls the OER trough forward. The September cut math holds on the labor side but the second-cut December pricing loses 8 to 12 basis points.

The regional dispersion the composite hides

The National composite running at 2.9 percent in March hid a regional split the twenty-city breakdown made explicit. Miami, Tampa, and Phoenix, the three Sun Belt cities that led the pandemic-era appreciation, printed year-over-year declines in the March release, at minus 0.8 percent, minus 0.4 percent, and minus 1.1 percent respectively. New York, Boston, and Chicago held year-over-year gains above 4.5 percent. The composite is running to the National average because the coastal gains have offset the Sun Belt declines.

The FHFA series, which weights the national stock more evenly than the twenty-city Case-Shiller composite, has held the deceleration without the same regional split. The Mountain census division printed at 1.7 percent year-over-year in the February FHFA release, the softest of the nine divisions. The New England census division printed at 5.4 percent, the firmest. The five-point spread across the nine divisions has held constant through the past twelve months.

The Tuesday morning bar and the day one calendar

The Case-Shiller National consensus for April sits at 2.8 percent year-over-year and 0.0 percent month-over-month seasonally adjusted. The FHFA consensus sits at 3.2 percent year-over-year and 0.1 percent month-over-month. A reading two tenths above consensus on either series adds roughly 3 to 5 basis points to the September cut math on the print alone. A reading two tenths below on both series confirms the wedge closure and lets the September 17 second-cut pricing rebuild through the FOMC minutes Wednesday afternoon.

The rest of the July 1 calendar carries Chicago PMI June at 9:45 ET, Conference Board Consumer Confidence June at 10:00 ET, and JOLTS May at 10:00 ET. The housing prints are the leadoff on a data-heavy Tuesday that opens the second half with the labor and housing sequences converging on the September pricing.

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