Updated PMI Risk Index

[blueskitten]

In Holden Lewis's blog on bankrate today, he mentioned that PMI has its fall risk index report out. The index gives the odds that housing prices will be lower in two years time in a given metropolitan area. To the surprise of nobody, Florida and California are particularly likely to be hammered (indexes in the 80-99% range). I was surprised to see how low Seattle was (at 2.3%). I admit I don't know enough about their methodology to know whether this is at all accurate - but if this is what an industry insurer is using to gauge its risk, it must be good for something (*smirk*).

I was curious to see what their report said at this time last year - since we've dropped close to 10% since then. I looked it up on their website and last year they were giving Seattle an index of 345 (34.5% chance). Incidentally, the highest index any metropolitan area was given at this point last year was 60.8% for Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA.

A link to the fall 08 report is here: http://www.pmi-us.com/media/pdf/product ... t08v4s.pdf