Home prices

And in January, all-cash buyers reached their highest share in nine years, at 32.1%, Redfin said.

By the end of December, 63% of borrowers saw home values increase by 7.3%, for a collective gain of $1 trillion, CoreLogic's report found.

"This is Han Solo in carbonite: This is a market that could stay frozen for quite some time," said Benjamin Keys, a real estate professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

The decline in loan activity and softening prices also helped drive down builder sentiment for the 11th month in a row.

Quarterly numbers also show the smallest gain in appreciation since 2011, with values decreasing on an unadjusted basis, according to Fannie Mae.

Housing's unusually high appreciation rates have now slowed for three months straight, and the number of metropolitan areas that are considered overvalued keeps growing, according to CoreLogic.

Prices are starting to fall in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. but they are still much higher than their pre-pandemic levels.

Several Sun Belt cities popular for relocation over the last two years were among markets with the most reduced listing prices in April.

A measure of home prices in 20 U.S. cities jumped 18.3%, down from 18.5% in October, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index showed Tuesday. It marked the fourth straight month that home-price appreciation has cooled off ever so slightly.

The share of borrowers who thought it was a good time to buy hit an all-time low, according to Fannie Mae.