A new Zillow report shows property values are down year on year in 24 of the 50 largest metro areas, with some of the sharpest falls hitting pandemic boomtowns and once red-hot Sun Belt markets.

Austin suffered the biggest drop, with typical home values down 6 percent from a year ago, followed by Dallas, Tampa, Denver, Orlando and Las Vegas.

Zillow said the spring bounce it had expected at the start of the year was 'put on pause' in April by higher mortgage rates.

The warning signs are not just in prices. Sales slipped 0.4 percent nationally from a year earlier, while new listings rose 2.1 percent - meaning more homes are coming on to the market than buyers are snapping up.

Zillow said it was the first time this year that new listings had grown faster than sales on an annual basis.

That matters because it gives buyers more choice and forces sellers to compete harder, particularly in markets where inventory is already piling up.

In Seattle, typical home values fell 2.1 percent while the number of homes for sale surged 25.9 percent. Sales there were also down 4.4 percent from a year earlier.

In Las Vegas, prices dropped 3 percent as sales fell 7 percent, while Atlanta saw home values fall 2.2 percent and sales drop 5.7 percent.

Austin tells a slightly different story. The Texas capital, once one of America's wildest pandemic boomtowns, suffered the steepest price fall in the country - but sales jumped 18 percent.

That suggests Austin is not simply frozen. It is repricing. Buyers are coming back, but only after sellers swallow painful discounts.

Zillow's national numbers show a market that has lost momentum just as it was supposed to be heating up.

There were 1.3 million homes for sale across the US in April, up 3.7 percent from a year earlier. New listings rose to 426,356, up 2.1 percent year on year and 10.7 percent from March.

But sales did not keep pace. Zillow's preliminary count showed 323,631 homes sold in April, down 0.4 percent from a year earlier.

Homes are also taking longer to shift. The typical listing went pending in 17 days in April, one day longer than last year.

Nearly a quarter of sellers cut their asking price, with 23.5 percent of listings on Zillow showing a price reduction.