June Case-Shiller Housing Numbers

From May to June, half of the cities that Case-Shiller tracks saw an increase in median home prices, while half saw declines.  The Composite 20-City index saw a month-over-month decline of 0.50% and a year-over-year decline of 15.92%.  This was the worst year-over-year reading yet.  As shown in the table at right, Denver saw the biggest month-over-month gains at 1.48%, followed by Boston (1.23%), Minneapolis (0.98%), Cleveland (0.73%) and Dallas (0.63%).  Atlanta, Charlotte, New York, Chicago and Detroit were the other cities posting May to June gains.  Phoenix saw the biggest month-over-month declines at -2.63%.  Phoenix was trailed by San Francisco (-1.76%), Miami (-1.72%), Las Vegas (-1.57%), and San Diego (-1.49%).  Basically, the problem areas of the West Coast and Florida were still the problem in June.

Below we highlight historical year-over-year changes in median home prices for the 20 cities and the two composite indices on a monthly basis.  If you look closely at the most recent points on the charts, you'll see that the year-over-year changes actually ticked up a little for most cities.  This indicates that while the declines are still bad, they've stopped getting worse in a lot of areas for the time being.

click to enlarge

Comments

[2houndz:]

Someone within my company graphed these changes monthly on Excel. I'm sure glad I left Detroit several years ago. What a disaster.
Most of the cities look like they are trending toward the bottom soon, but I personally wouldn't want to make that bet. Still, the graph is interesting and looks better than I expected and better than the charts shown above.

2008 Aug 27 08:35 PM

[Chris1206:]

Phoenix continues to take it in the shorts. You could tell the run up here didn't make any sense. Now they are all paying for it. I'm glad I have rented for the past 5 years. I looked stupid when I wasn't in the game and now I'm the smartest guy in the room. Go figure?

2008 Aug 27 08:52 PM

[LilBob:]

I'm still convinced housing has much farther to fall. Let us not forget that one of the major problems behind the real estate boom was that so many homes were thrown up by greedy builders whose quality of workmanship was quite poor. We aren't talking about little Arts & Crafts bungalows that will still be standing 120 years from now, we're talking about a nation covered with nelighborhoods of shoddy firetraps that will all decline into ramshackle ghettos in another fifteen to twenty years.

2008 Aug 28 07:39 AM

[Smalltownba...:]

Shoddy workmanship, substandard materials (vinyl siding), inadequate inspections, high density development and the loss of 20-40% of value is a common occurance across the nation right now, even in rural markets. The sad part is that many small banks have just begun to foreclose on loans that have been dead for a long time due to regulatory visits and sanctions. Look for a wave of small to medium size bank failures in the next 12 months, leading to even lower home sales prices.

2008 Aug 28 09:51 AM

[jay fredric...:]

Phoenix, Miami and Tampa are clearly bubble markets with 3s thing in common. Sun, warmth and future growth. Smart money to be made there right now on foreclosures and hold until the excess is blown off. As soon as people in Boston and Chicago retire and sell their homes there, they'll move to these areas. This trend will continue until global warming melts the icebergs in Alaska.

Jay Fredrickson
1-75.mobi

2008 Aug 28 10:08 AM

[azrob:]

good lord! above me jay who must be a realtor says "buy in phoenix" hey dufus, did you miss the part that the drops in phoenix are actually picking up speed? Foreclosures here keep climbing, and the metro is losing jobs for the first time in over 20 years, yep buy today!

Another 6 months, maybe, another year? but today? 55K inventory, sales rate barely over 5K a month, and foreclosures over 4K. YOU go buy, smarter people will wait and watch prices continue to fall!

2008 Aug 28 11:58 PM

[stmfreak:]

Please note that the graphs do not reflect prices, but rather change in prices. A simplistic, but handy way to estimate the bottom would be to go back to where you think the bubble started and measure the area under the line (i.e. between ~15% and zero in most markets). Next, assuming we stay at 15% decline year over year, estimate how much area we'll need to cover to neutralize those gains.

The nice things about percentage declines is that they can go on forever without hitting zero. I expect we'll see 15% declines for the next five years. Good luck with your foreclosures, Jay.

2008 Aug 29 05:38 PM

[ptiemann:]

note that the y-axis is not the same for all cities.
Phoenix was up 60% and dropped 30% / year.
Detroit dropped 15% / year.
If all cities would use the same y scale, it would look better for Detroit, and much worse for Phoenix and Vegas

2008 Aug 29 10:10 PM

[DaveBarnes:]

@stmfreak: "A simplistic, but handy way to estimate the bottom...measure the area under the line... how much area we'll need to cover to neutralize those gains."

Not exactly. The problem is that the CS index is percentages. So, a 50% increase is offset by a 33% decline. Using areas will give you a very rough idea of the amount of downward price correction needed, but not an accurate one.

@ptiemann: "note that the y-axis is not the same for all cities."

I agree with you 100%. Using different heights for the same percentage makes the graphs very difficult to interpret at-a-glance.

2008 Dec 28 12:17 PM