Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Home prices fell further than expected last year



U.S. home prices dropped further than expected last year, showing the housing industry remains significantly stressed despite recent reports suggesting otherwise.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which measures home prices in 20 cities, fell 3.8 percent in December from November and 4 percent from a year ago.

Prices in the Charlotte metropolitan area fell 2 percent from November and were down 2.3 percent from December 2010, according to the index, which tracks repeat sales.

Nineteen of 20 cities saw prices decline on a monthly basis, with Phoenix yet again being the only city to post an increase. On an annual basis, Detroit was the only city on the index to post a gain. Prices there nudged up .5 percent.  Atlanta continues to suffer among the most, posting a nearly 13 percent drop from December 2010, followed by Las Vegas with a 8.8 percent annual decline.

“In terms of pricing, the housing market ended 2011 on a very disappointing note, said David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices.”While we thought we saw some signs of stabilization in the middle of 2011, it appears that neither the economy nor consumer confidence was strong enough to move the market in a positive direction as the year ended.”

The housing market had shown promising signs, according to a report by The National Association of Realtors. The group recently said its Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed in January, increased 2 percent to 97.0 -- the highest reading since April 2010.

But Tuesday's gloomy report suggests the market may falter again this year.

Since housing prices began falling rapidly in 2006, the market has had two years of a market "that is bottoming out but not yet stabilized," Blitzer said. "Up until today's report we had believed the crisis lows for the composites were behind us."

But, he said, "The pick-up in the economy has simply not been enough to keep home prices stabilized. If anything it looks like we might have reentered a period of decline as we begin 2012."

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Repeat sales is becoming questionable. If a house sells on average every 5-10 years - then maybe they just keep picking up houses that haven't sold since prior to 2007/2008? I doubt there are many homes that sell every 2 years or so - and if there are - they probably have a problem of some sort.

Kerry - is there any way to get the Case Shiller Raw data? How many sales did they have?

Anonymous said...

I don't think you can get the case-schiller raw data from a single location.

You'd most likely be checking all the property records for each area they measure.

Which is why they are unique.

Anonymous said...

This was all I could find mentioning CSI raw data.

From Moody's:

http://www.economy.com/support/blog/buffet.aspx?did=FB811996-2E66-4764-AD64-AC80272C0689

May need a subscription.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to at least see how many sales they have recorded for 2011 for the Charlotte Metropolitan Area. Is it 100 or 1,000 or 20,000? How many sales are there in between months? Aren't homes that have repeatedly sold over the last 5 years more likely to be distressed, thus skewing the data if it is not a large enough pool?

George Hanson said...

Prices are going down, and will continue to go down....get used to it.

Anonymous said...

So the fabricated studies meant to boost the failure that is Obama are wrong? The same studies that were to verify the big lie that were the local revaluations?

Shocking.

Anonymous said...

The government program that granted $5,000 in tax incentives for first-time home buyers was the only thing that caused homes to move within the past 2 years.

And like every government program, it's short-lived, caters to a small minority and winds up causing the taxpayer more than it's worth. Furthermore, it artificially skews the private sector and ultimately delays any long-term housing recovery.

We should have a long time ago allowed a lot of the homes and the banks that owned the paper, to default. Instead, 4 years later we're still dealing with this mess and will continue if government tries to 'intervene' and assist.

Anonymous said...

Link to Case Schiller Raw Data-no login needed. Since peek prices last decade, Charlotte has maintained the #3 overall market rate (-17%) out of the Full 20 markets evaluated. Only Dallas, TX, and Denver, CO beat us. So at least we were not hit too badly. (avg is down 34%)
http://www.standardandpoors.com/indices/sp-case-shiller-home-price-indices/en/us/?indexId=spusa-cashpidff--p-us----

Anonymous said...

Just found a good web site that gives us a good idea of the current value of the homes in our area. Check out zillow.com and look up your address. It's will surprise you that your home is valued about 20-40% below you last tax revaluation. Goes to show you just how greedy the city of Charlotte and the County of Mecklenburg can be.

Anonymous said...

Zillow is notoriously unreliable.

real estate queens said...

The housing market had shown promising signs, according to a report by The National Association of Realtors.Which was not at all accepted...

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real estate course said...

The home price has fallen further than expected