Before we put away the Case-Shiller data for another month, let’s check in on the second derivative. For an introduction to this particular view, hit the original post from March.
First up, the plot of both the first derivative (year over year changes) and the second derivative (month over month changes in the year over year data):
The second derivative is still well into the black as year over year price changes continue to move rapidly up toward zero. Unless we start to see the second derivative head back into negative territory, it still seems quite reasonable to assume that the year over year value will be in the black before the first half of this year is over.
But that’s just Seattle. In order to get a more broad look at the data from all twenty Case-Shiller cities, I created this chart, in which each green square represents a city with a positive second derivative, and each red square a city with a negative second derivative:
Things were clearly the most negative from 2006 through 2008, and then again in late 2010 and early 2011 after the tax credit buzz wore off. Here’s an even longer-range view of this chart, stretching all the way back to 2000 (the earliest that Case-Shiller reports on all twenty cities):
The last few months have actually more or less resembled the more “normal” pre-bubble market of the early 2000s. I still doubt that we’ll be returning to the frenzied increases of the bubble days any time even remotely soon, but I do think that the trend suggests that price declines are nearing an end in most markets.