S&P/Case-Shiller: February 2011

Note... be sure to bookmark the overall S&P/Case-Shiller Dashboard or the Scary Housing Dashboard of the weakest markets for a real-time view of all the markets tracked by S&P.

Today’s release of the S&P/Case-Shiller (CSI) home price indices for February reported that the non-seasonally adjusted Composite-10 price index declined a notable 1.11% since January indicating that housing is continuing slump into a double-dip.

The latest CSI data clearly indicates that the price trends are continuing to slump and, as I recently pointed out, the more timely and less distorted Radar Logic RPX data is continuing to capture notable price weakness nationwide.

Further, both composite indices are now showing notable year-over-year declines, a weak sign indeed.

The 10-city composite index declined 2.65% as compared to February 2010 while the 20-city composite declined 3.33% over the same period.

Topping the list of regional peak decliners was Las Vegas at -58.14%, Phoenix at -55.67%, Miami at -50.71%, Detroit at -46.50% and Tampa at -46.08%.

Additionally, both of the broad composite indices show significant peak declines slumping -32.52% for the 10-city national index and -32.56% for the 20-city national index on a peak comparison basis.

To better visualize today’s results use Blytic.com to view the full release.

The following chart (click for larger version) shows the percent change to single family home prices given by the Case-Shiller Indices as compared to each metros respective price peak set between 2005 and 2007.

The following chart (click for larger version) shows the percent change to single family home prices given by the Case-Shiller Indices as on a year-over-year basis.

The following chart (click for larger version) shows the percent change to single family home prices given by the Case-Shiller Indices as on a month-to-month basis.

Additionally, in order to add some historical context to the perspective, I updated my “then and now” CSI charts that compare our current circumstances to the data seen during 90s housing decline.

To create the following annual and normalized charts I simply aligned the CSI data from the last month of positive year-over-year gains for both the current decline and the 90s housing bust and plotted the data side-by-side (click for larger version).


The “peak” chart compares the percentage change, comparing monthly CSI values to the peak value seen just prior to the first declining month all the way through the downturn and the full recovery of home prices.

New Home Sales: March 2011

Today, the U.S. Census Department released its monthly New Residential Home Sales Report for March showing a notable monthly jump with sales increasing 11.11% since February but still declining 21.88% below the level seen a year earlier to 300K SAAR units.

These results, while strengthening a bit off of last months horrendous results still clearly indicate that the nation's housing markets are now firmly entrenched in a double-dip and come fully in-line with the other pitiful housing data-points I have outlined in past weeks.

The monthly supply declined to 7.3 months while the median selling price declined a notable 4.89% and the average selling price declined a notable 6.12%.

The following chart show the extent of sales decline to date (click for full-larger version).

More Pain, Less Gain: S&P/Case-Shiller Preview for February 2011

As I demonstrated in prior posts, given their strong correlation, the home price indices provided daily by Radar Logic, averaged monthly, can effectively be used as a preview of the monthly S&P/Case-Shiller home price indices.

The current Radar Logic 25 MSA Composite data reported on residential real estate transactions (condos, multi and single family homes) that settled as late as February 21 and averaged for the month indicates that in the wake of the expiration of the government's final housing tax gimmick prices have continued to decline nationally dropping 4.36% below the level seen in February 2010.

This trend is likely telling us that, as transactions collapse down to the weak "organic" level post-housing tax scam, prices have followed.

Look for tomorrow's S&P/Case-Shiller home price report to reflect an equivalent declining trend for prices as the source data moves further through months affected by the tax credit activity and into reality.