Updated January '08 Case-Shiller Housing Data

The January 2008 S&P/Case-Shiller housing numbers were released Tuesday for 20 US cities. Over the past few days, we've seen some better than expected housing numbers, indicating that things might be getting "less worse," so it's important to note that these numbers lag by three months.

If things have begun to get better, these numbers will be the last to show it. Regardless, it's important to highlight which areas of the country have been hit the hardest.

As shown in the table at right, home prices in Las Vegas and Miami fell the most from January '07 to January '08. Las Vegas also fell the most from December '07 to January '08. Over that one-month period, Las Vegas fell sharply at 5.1%. Phoenix was the second worst performer month-over-month at -4.05%. Charlotte was the only city that saw year-over-year gains at +1.75%. Charlotte also fell the least month-over-month at -0.15%. The Composite 20-City index fell 10.71% year-over-year and 2.28% month-over-month.

Below we highlight historical monthly year-over-year changes for all 20 cities and the two Composite indices.

click to enlarge

Comments

[RGSBroker]

Your article makes no sense and does a diservice to the S & P/Case-Shiller index. When you write "these number" what numbers are you talking about? The index does not lag by 3 months and what does this mean: "If things have begun to get better, these numbers will be the last to show it." It seems like you think these lousy numbers portend a better market. Crazy!

[wisdomseeker]

Read Ritholtz and you'll realize the Bespoke guys can't tell a "better than expected" number from a "worse than expected but spun like mad" number. An objective look at the slightly fresher but much less objectively valuable information from the Realtors *really* shows that February was *not* an improvement. The real impact of the Case-Shiller numbers is that they show the real estate crash was (still) getting worse even faster in January -- except in Boston.