Let’s have a look at the latest data from the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. According to March data that was released this morning, Seattle-area home prices were:
Up 2.6 percent February to March
Up 12.3 percent year-over-year.
Up 12.7 percent from the July 2007 peak
Over the same period last year prices were up 2.4 percent month-over-month and year-over-year prices were up 10.9 percent.
Seattle home prices as measured by Case-Shiller shot up yet again to a new all-time high in March, and let the nation in month-over-month and year-over-year price gains for the second month in a row.
The near hockey-stick shape of some of these home price charts is starting to concern me.
Here’s a Tableau Public interactive graph of the year-over-year change for all twenty Case-Shiller-tracked cities. Check and un-check the boxes on the right to modify which cities are showing:
Seattle’s rank for month-over-month changes hit #1 in February and held that position easily in March.
Hit the jump for the rest of our monthly Case-Shiller charts, including the interactive chart of raw index data for all 20 metro areas.
Seattle’s year-over-year price growth edged up yet again from February to March, to the highest level it has been at in over three years. Yet again in March, none of the twenty Case-Shiller-tracked metro areas gained more year-over-year than Seattle. From February through August of last year, Portland had been in the #1 slot above Seattle.
Don’t worry, the Northwest will always and forever continue to be literally the envy of other states.
Seven cities hit new all-time highs again in March: San Francisco, Denver, Boston, Charlotte, Portland, Dallas, and Seattle.
Here’s the interactive chart of the raw HPI for all twenty metro areas through March.
Here’s an update to the peak-decline graph, inspired by a graph created by reader CrystalBall. This chart takes the twelve metro areas 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 116 months since the price peak in Seattle prices are up 12.7 percent.
Lastly, let’s see how Seattle’s current prices compare to the previous bubble inflation and subsequent burst. Note that this chart does not adjust for inflation.
Check back tomorrow for our monthly look at Case-Shiller data for Seattle’s price tiers.
(Home Price Indices, Standard & Poor’s, 2017-05-30)