Monday, November 26, 2012

Y-O-Y: Why-Oh-Why Edition

Tomorrow we get the Case-Shiller HPI. Consensus is for flat to slightly down month-over-month and up 2.6% to 3.0% year over year. Seeing as C-S is a rolling three month datum and significantly delayed there is little chance of a surprise. I'd even say the high end is more likely.

Of course this is good news. Remember we are always told not to look at short term variations. Well then, why are we looking at year over year then? The Great Recession ended in December 2009. How has housing done from the bottom?

August 2009 to August 2012 C-S HPI
AZ-Phoenix 110%
CA-Los Angeles 104%
CA-San Diego 103%
CA-San Francisco 107%
CO-Denver 103%
DC-Washington 108%
FL-Miami 101%
FL-Tampa 94%
GA-Atlanta 86%
IL-Chicago 90%
MA-Boston 101%
MI-Detroit 111%
MN-Minneapolis 101%
NC-Charlotte 97%
NV-Las Vegas 91%
NY-New York 95%
OH-Cleveland 96%
OR-Portland 94%
TX-Dallas 100%
WA-Seattle 95%
Composite-10 100%
Composite-20 100%

And recall.  there were still years of declines after August 2009.  Year over year may appear to be doing better but that's only for the minisucle number who bought last year.  Thought experiment.  What do you think the decade over decade return looks like?  What will it look like in 2016?  

4 comments:

W.C. Varones said...

The way Zimbabwe Ben is printing money, I'd be surprised if we're not headed higher.

This Encinitas neighborhood has already surpassed peak pricing.

Rob Dawg said...

Nota Bene: S&P has launched a new portal to their data:

http://us.spindices.com/

sm_landlord said...

Those HPI increases of the bottom in Aug 09 look pretty big, but the areas I look at (coastal Cali) have only gone up 15-30% - e.g a place that might have sold for 650K at the bottom might bring 750K now, or 800K if it was remodeled.

Predicting the future is hard, but things do change in Cali given enough time, like decades. Generally not to the benefit of people who live here, though, so it's hard to be optimistic.

Unknown said...

SM Landlord, best to amend that to So Cal Coastal. It's also true that parts of the coast south of SF have come up a little since 2008, not so for Marin or Sonoma Counties.