Happy Case-Shiller day, everybody. Yes, it’s time once again for us to take a look at the latest data from the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. According to February data, Seattle home prices were:
Down 1.9% January to February.
Down 7.5% YOY.
Down 30.9% from the July 2007 peak
Last year prices fell 1.1% from January to February and year-over-year prices were down 5.6%.
February’s data marked yet another new post-peak low point for Seattle home prices, which have now fallen back to levels last seen in June 2004. Prices are down 9.7% since July (the first post-tax credit month), and down 11.2% from their late-2009 tax credit mini-peak. Wow the billions of dollars we spent to get people to buy homes in 2009 and 2010 instead of 2011 and 2012 sure was worth it.
Here’s an interactive graph of all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities, courtesy of Tableau Software (check and un-check the boxes on the right):
Only one city is still above where it was this time last year: Washington DC.
In February, sixteen of the twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities experienced smaller year-over-year drops (or saw year-over-year increases) than Seattle (four more than January):
- Washington, DC at +2.7%
- Boston at -1.0%
- Dallas at -1.2%
- San Diego at -1.8%
- Los Angeles at -2.1%
- Denver at -2.6%
- Cleveland at -2.9%
- New York at -3.1%
- San Francisco at -3.5%
- Detroit at -3.7%
- Las Vegas at -5.0%
- Charlotte at -5.0%
- Atlanta at -5.8%
- Tampa at -6.0%
- Miami at -6.2%
- Portland at -7.0%
Falling faster than Seattle as of February: Chicago, Minneapolis, and Phoenix.
Hit the jump for the rest of our monthly Case-Shiller charts, including the interactive chart of the raw Case-Shiller HPIs.
Here’s the interactive chart of the raw HPI for all twenty cities through November.
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 forty-three months since the price peak in Seattle prices have declined 30.9%, another new high, and rapidly approaching a full third off.
Here’s the “rewind” chart, to show you how much was gained, and then given back up over the last six-plus years:
The blue line on August 2005 represents the month that this site launched. As of February 2011, there have effectively been zero price gains since June 2004.
For posterity, here’s our offset graph—the same graph we post every month—with L.A. & San Diego time-shifted from Seattle & Portland by 17 months. All four cities fell yet again in December. Year-over-year, Portland came in at -7.0%, Los Angeles at -2.1%, and San Diego at -1.8%.
I think this graph is still worth posting if only to display how the government’s massive intervention in the market screwed with the natural flow, causing all the markets to rise simultaneously, and once the artificial support was removed, to come crashing back down to reality simultaneously.
Note: This graph is not intended to be predictive. It is for entertainment purposes only.
Check back tomorrow for a post on the Case-Shiller data for Seattle’s price tiers.
(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 04.26.2011)