OFHEO: Home Prices Increased in 30 Out of 50 States Over Past Year

The map above (click to enlarge) is from the latest housing report from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight [OFHEO], showing the "Four-Quarter Price Change by State" from 2007:Q2 to 2008:Q2 in the OFEHO House Price Index, which averaged -1.7% for the country.

However, notice that the biggest price decreases over the last year in the OFHEO House Price Index [HPI] have taken place in 4 states: CA (-15.8%), NV (-14.1%), FL (-12.4%) and AZ (-9.2%), see previous CD post (data through 2008:Q1 for that post). After those four states, the next closest price decline was the -4.85% decline in Rhode Island, after AZ (-9.2%). If you take out those four states (CA, NV, FL, AZ) the overall price decline over the last year was only -.75%. That is, the huge price decreases in the four states contributed about -1% to the overall national decline of -1.7% (without weighting for the size of each state).

Further, house prices have increased over the last year in 30 states, ranging from +0.56% for WA to +4.93% in OK, including increases of more than 4% for two states (OK and WY), and increases at or above 3% for 12 states (OK, WY, TX, OK, SD, ND, MS, AL, NC, SC, KY, WV). Finally, more than half of the states (27) have experienced home price increases of 1% or greater.

Comment: The way it gets reported in the media, you would think the entire national real estate is crashing, with home prices everywhere in "free fall," when the reality is slightly different: Over the last year, there have been significant home price corrections in only 4 states of between -9 and -16%, moderate price declines of between -2 to -5% in 9 states, and price increases in 30 states of between +0.56% and +4.93%.

Comments

[rob d:]

how high did the 30 states go during the boom?
how many people live in the states going down vs. the states going up?
do you know that California's economy is larger than most countries?
are you a ridiculous permabulll?
do you manage money for people? i hope not...

2008 Aug 27 08:43 AM

[Tim Plaehn:]

I saw the same report. The media is really skewing this story.

2008 Aug 27 08:49 AM

[rob d:]

in what way, tim? do you have an answer for my questions?

2008 Aug 27 08:50 AM

[wpdragon:]

i think mister Perry has a Ph.D in bourbon

What a total administration shill... how much are they paying him?

2008 Aug 27 09:49 AM

[Still Renting:]

I'm a Bush supporter and don't blame this mess on him. Maybe that is why I can look at this kind of article and just laugh. The information against it is overwhelming. It really is the old phrase "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics" in action.

I live in Washington state, which he has at blue. It is the state Seattle is in. You know, the city that everyone says is "bucking the trend". The author needs to go to seattlebubble.com...

2008 Aug 27 09:57 AM

[billddrummer:]

I would say look at the link Dr. Perry supplied to the OFHEO report. It's much less optimistic than his analysis.

Funny how your own source materials fail to support your conclusions, Dr.

2008 Aug 27 10:12 AM

[Tom Lindmark:]

OFHEO's numbers have their uses but one of them isn't tracking short term swings in house prices. They only measure loans made and refinanced by Fannie and Freddie and thus miss a considerable piece of the market. This is especially true for transactions which occurred in the past few years. Many of those real estate transactions were financed with subprime and Alt-A loans which don't show up on OFHEO's radar screen.

2008 Aug 27 12:09 PM

[robert.b.fe...:]

In realestate it's all about location location location.

2008 Aug 27 04:32 PM

[paul:]

Amazing how an article about government data becomes a political football. But that is what the twits in DC (both parties) have created. Political positioning is more important than solving problems. It must be the water?

2008 Aug 28 05:11 PM