Let’s make our regularly scheduled monthly check on the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. According to March data,
Up 0.2% March to April.
Down 16.8% YOY.
Down 22.3% from the July 2007 peak
Last year prices rose 0.7% from March to April and year-over-year prices were down 4.9%.
Here’s the usual graph, with L.A. & San Diego offset from Seattle & Portland by 17 months. Portland continued to turn in a slightly smaller YOY loss than Seattle. Meanwhile, down in SoCal, the losses continue to get smaller. If Seattle and Portland keep following the trend set by San Diego and Los Angeles, we will see the most extreme YOY drops next March.
Note: This graph is not intended to be predictive. It is for entertainment purposes only.
Here’s the graph of all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities:
In April, eight of the twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities experienced smaller year-over-year drops than Seattle (the same number as the previous four months). Denver at -4.9%, Dallas at -5.0%, Boston at -7.7%, Charlotte at -10.0%, Cleveland at -10.5%, New York at -12.2%, Atlanta at -15.2%, and Portland at -16.0%. As usual, Phoenix had the largest year-over-year drop, with prices falling 35% in a single year.
Here’s an update to the peak-decline graph, inspired by a graph created by reader CrystalBall. This chart takes the twelve cities whose peak index was greater than 175, and tracks how far they have fallen so far from their peak. The horizontal axis shows the total number of months since each individual city peaked.
In the twenty months since the price peak in Seattle prices have declined 22.3%. April’s uptick brought us further from the trendlines of Phoenix and Tampa, and closer to San Francisco. April saw similar upticks in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, DC, and Boston.
Here’s the “rewind” chart. The horizontal range is selected to go back just far enough to find the last time that Seattle’s HPI was as low as it is now. This gives us a clean visual of just how far back prices have retreated in terms of months.
Seattle’s Case-Shiller value for April 2009 of 149.38 came in just above its May 2005 value of 148.97. Prices have now “rewound” a full four years (longer than this site has been in existence).
Finally, the following chart takes the post-bubble years of 2007, 2008, and 2009 and indexes each January’s Case-Shiller HPI to 100 so we can get a picture of how this year’s declines compare to last year:
We got the uptick we were expecting for April, but compared to last year’s bump, I’d have to call it somewhat… anemic. If price declines only manage to match last year, Seattle’s index will be just over 29% off peak by December. If we continue to turn in stronger price drops than 2008, we’ll be closer to 32% off peak by December.
Check back tomorrow for a post on the Case-Shiller data for Seattle’s price tiers.
(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 06.30.2009)
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