Case-Shiller: U.S. Home Prices Keep Weakening as Eight Cities Reach New Lows

Shiller is a hack.

He's a dick. Trust me.

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What if it was a thread about the stock market going down? Would your response be "Dow is a hack"?

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Personally, I'd blame "Jones"....

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As S&P noted "eight markets – Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami, Portland (OR), Seattle and Tampa – hit their lowest levels since home prices peaked in 2006 and 2007". Both composite indices are still slightly above the post-bubble low.

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Vegas, Miami, Tampa, Atl, Charl, all had far too much spec tract homes built to glut their suburban markets. Miami and Vegas far too many and absolutely massive high-rise condos built before the economy collapsed, and now have saddled HOAs that can't carry weak occupancy rate towers costs on their own. I suspect possibly Portland's waterfront a tad too? Detroit suffering Rust Belt and car manufacturing woes, longterm decaying inner-city infrastructure, though Ford is coming back strong lately, and may help?

On the BR front, friends of mine that are realtors, have stated BR's been tough in moving the 250-275K and up market for over two-plus years now. I see the same for sale signs on properties go on and off market aplenty..and plenty of lease signs on office/strip center windows.

Det, Mia, and LV have been DOA for at least three-plus years now. And anyone could see the LV fallout forthcoming long before it hit, as it was an utterly pie-in-the-sky race amongst many high-rise developers for the same limited market of buyers..and not near enough TND or small singles dwellings.

Forget the fact that they're "not very high," but simply that they have been moving up/sidways since basically Q1 09 (so 2 years ago, so market bottom), and you've had people calling for a double-dip in prices for months.

I'm not saying that's not "baked in," this is not meant to be a market timing question (which is why I feel the point about the data being lagged to be irrelevant to this particular discussion), its an economic question. I'm just pointing out that the updated (and yes, extremely lagged as it always is) most commonly observed/accepted measure of real estate prices in the US has very clearly established a new trend, and it is the opposite direction from the one that persisted for the past 2 years (you know, while everything snapped back). I'm not trying to paint this as some inflection point, the graph clearly shows that was awhile ago, just a continuing bad trend.

Bump along the bottom with the bottom being the previously set bottom? Can we complete the trifecta and get a best case and a likely case scenario as well?

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I'm just pointing out that the updated (and yes, extremely lagged as it always is) most commonly observed/accepted measure of real estate prices in the US has very clearly established a new trend, and it is the opposite direction from the one that persisted for the past 2 years (you know, while everything snapped back).

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I don't think so.

All you've managed to show is that y-o-y prices are hovering around a 0% change, which doesn't show any clear reverse at all.

We're just seeing the tail-end of a short-term dropoff caused by a short-term surge from tax credits. The 2 short-term effects pretty much cancel each other out, resulting in an essential wash.

Given that consumer credit is finally picking up again, and that nominal prices should start picking up again (4% CPI inflation in 2011 anyone?), I don't think you can look at the data you've given and see any reason (based solely on that data) for a new trend where nominal home prices begin eroding beyond minor seasonal deductions.

I'll go ahead and give prediction a try.

The 3-month rolling average for NAR median prices went down 0.53% from Sep-10/Oct-10/Nov-10 to Oct-10/Nov-10/Dec-10.

The CS & NAR data lines look like they're about to cross again, so I'll go ahead and guess that the next C-S 20-city HPI numbers will show a -0.6% drop.

The latest Nov-10 figure was 143.85, so put me down for the Dec-10 figure being 142.99 when it gets reported on Tuesday, February 22.

I'll also go ahead and take a guess that the 2011 low for the 20-city HPI will be very close to the Apr-09 low of 139.26, but will barely stay above it.

Grain of salt due to the source, but existing home price declines may have abated. Then again, who knows. It's still location. The area I'm in is down maybe 25% of the peak-to-trough total ATL mkt average referenced by C-S. The neighborhood was also buoyed by long term ownership instead of McMansion wanna be's with no lots. The ring of death is the ring of death in this market. YMMV.

LINK

"Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said sales are on an uptrend. “December was a good finish to 2010, when sales fluctuate more than normal. The pattern over the past six months is clearly showing a recovery,” he said. “The December pace is near the volume we’re expecting for 2011, so the market is getting much closer to an adequate, sustainable level. The recovery will likely continue as job growth gains momentum and rising rents encourage more renters into ownership while exceptional affordability conditions remain.”

"The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $168,800 in December, which is 1.0% below December 2009. Distressed homes rose to a 36% market share in December from 33% in November, and 32% in December 2009."