Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Year over Year Housing Prices Up for the First Time Since 2006, But Momentum Weak

The Washington Post details:

Home prices in February posted their first annual increase in more than three years, though it's too early to say the housing market is recovering.

Despite the 0.6 percent increase on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, 11 of the 20 cities in the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index showed declines.

The last time prices rose on a year-over-year basis was December 2006. But economists polled by Thomson Reuters had predicted prices to rise 1.2 percent in February.

Home prices are up more than 3 percent from the bottom in May 2009, but still are 30 percent below the May 2006 peak.

On a month to month basis, the Case-Shiller Home Price Index was relatively unchanged on a seasonally adjusted basis (the Composite 20 dipped slightly, the Composite 10 jumped slightly). Both were below estimates.

What is striking is where the month-to-month increases were concentrated... almost entirely in the west.



And the longer view shows the relative strength (i.e. weakness) of the rebound as compared to the fall.



Source: S&P

7 comments:

  1. Any idea why the west coast area's prices are still inflating?

    Is it because of the Asian community buying?

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  2. three thoughts:

    1) there is an extra california tax credit
    2) prices fell the furthest (thus most opportunity to recover)
    3) there had been a lot of forced selling. less forced selling = higher prices

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  3. population : ~300.000.000
    yearly new house market: ~400.000

    this means that :
    here is the World's biggest Third World country !!

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  4. the ownership of the house can not be interpretated as "saving instrument" becouse of it's -negative amortization- values !

    the existing house market as a speculative market can not be interpretated as "core economic indicator"becouse of it's basis, mainly depends on " mobile population actions" !

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  5. I live in San Jose and the flurry of buying in the high end homes (750k+) has been pretty insane.

    I never saw the prices fall too far, the prices never fell below 25 price/annual rent for example.

    I think the california tax credit starts about a month AFTER the expiration of the federal one?

    Me thinks the situation in silicon valley wasn't as bad as the rest of the country due the asian culture of loving houses, much like Vancouver.

    I think the area will be very hard hit in the next wave down. Don't know, just my thoughts.

    Do you live near the SF area Jake? What are your thoughts about the housing market here in the bay area.

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  6. in california there is actually the ability to get both credits if one is to time it right (http://tinyurl.com/2cgnhce), but you are right that it looks like it is 5/1 or later.

    i actually live in new york city, but looking to relocate to the bay area when the time is right (hopefully within the next 2-12 months).

    i will be a renter, but for a number of reasons outside of pricing levels (which i've read are in the neighborhood of 30-35x multiples of rent, which is pretty insane). number one being, i have no idea where i want to live long term (i don't know san fran well - my wife is from the area).

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  7. geo..,..gdr..

    i agree with you !

    ReplyDelete