S&P/Case-Shiller: May 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 May reported that the non-seasonally adjusted Composite-10 price index increased 1.13% since April while the Composite-20 index incresed 1.02% over the same period with both measures continuing to decline notably since last year.

The latest CSI data clearly indicates that the price trends are experiencing a bit of a lift into the typically more active spring season and, as I recently pointed out, the more timely and less distorted Radar Logic RPX data is continuing to capture rising prices driven primarily by seasonality.

It's important to note though that both composite indices are continuing to show notable year-over-year declines, a weak sign indeed.

The 10-city composite index declined 3.62% as compared to May 2010 while the 20-city composite declined 4.51% over the same period.

Topping the list of regional peak decliners was Las Vegas at -59.28%, Phoenix at -55.85%, Detroit at -51.19%, Miami at -50.65% and Tampa at -47.46%.

Additionally, both of the broad composite indices show significant peak declines slumping -32.10% for the 10-city national index and -32.27% 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.

More Pain, Less Gain: S&P/Case-Shiller Preview for May 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 May 23 and averaged for the month indicates that with increasing spring transactions has come increasing prices (the typical trend) with the national index increasing 1.14% since April but still remaining 5.89% below the level seen in May 2010.

The Radar Logic index will likely be capturing an uptrend in prices from now until mid-summer when transactions generally start to turn down again.

Look for tomorrow's S&P/Case-Shiller home price report to reflect this trend though to a lesser degree due to its three month rolling-average nature with prices moderately higher.

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index: June 2011

Today’s release of the Chicago Federal Reserve National Activity Index (CFNAI) indicated that national economic remained weak in June with the index remaining in contraction territory for the third consecutive month at -0.46 while the three month moving average declined to -0.60, a slight 10 points above the Feds official recessionary mark.



The CFNAI is a weighted average of 85 indicators of national economic activity collected into four overall categories of “production and income”, “employment, unemployment and income”, “personal consumption and housing” and “sales, orders and inventories”.



The Chicago Fed regards a value of zero for the total index as indicating that the national economy is expanding at its historical trend rate while a negative value indicates below average growth.



A value at or below -0.70 for the three month moving average of the national activity index (CFNAI-MA3) indicates that the national economy has either just entered or continues in recession.



It’s important to note that at -0.60, the current three month average index value is indicating that contraction may be in the offing.