It Figures

Which is the Most Accurate Home Price Index?

I think it might be useful to approach the "which is best" question from the point of view of what you want to use it for. If you want it to help with trading, C-S probably does the trick, as it is what most others look at. But if you are looking for a read on housing's impact on the consumer, OFHEO could be more informative, as it probably eliminates non-owner occupied spec related transactions (overwhelmingly non-conforming loans), where a great deal of the "sell at any price" and/or walkaway behavior has been concentrated.

Houses are not fungible, and neither are housing markets. To gauge the impact on the creditworthy owner occupied market (the bulk of which are going to look like the OFHEO data), I think it is useful to judge the degree of speculation in the market before coming to conclusions. Looked at this way, most markets are not declining Y/Y - just increasing very slowly. This is why the consumer spending numbers ( and WMT) keep "surprising" on the upside.