Let’s check out the three price tiers for the Seattle area, as measured by Case-Shiller. Remember, Case-Shiller’s “Seattle” data is based on single-family home repeat sales in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.
Note that the tiers are determined by sale volume. In other words, 1/3 of all sales fall into each tier. For more details on the tier methodologies, hit the full methodology pdf. Here are the current tier breakpoints:
- Low Tier: < $241,552 (down 1.6%)
- Mid Tier: $241,552 – $380,347
- Hi Tier: > $380,347 (down 1.6%)
First up is the straight graph of the index from January 2000 through February 2011.
Here’s a zoom-in, showing just the last year:
The low tier has given up over 13% just since June. The middle tier peaked a bit earlier during the credit in May, and has dropped nearly 12% since then. The high tier didn’t peak until July, and has only lost about 8% since that time.
All three tiers fell again in February, but the middle tier took by far the largest hit. The low tier dropped 1.6% MOM, the middle tier fell 3.1%, and the high tier lost 1.5%.
Here’s a chart of the year-over-year change in the index from January 2003 through February 2011.
Oddly, although the low tier took a pretty big hit in February, it was a smaller hit than a year ago (-3.1%), so the low tier’s YOY performance actually improved slightly. Here’s where the tiers sit YOY as of February – Low: -10.3%, Med: -10.6%, Hi: -5.8%.
Lastly, here’s a decline-from-peak graph like the one posted yesterday, but looking only at the Seattle tiers.
Current standing is 36.6% off peak for the low tier, 32.4% off peak for the middle tier, and 29.0% off peak for the high tier.
(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 04.26.2011)