Case-Shiller Update – Seattle Real Estate July 2010

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are the leading measures for the US residential housing market, tracking changes in the value of residential real estate both nationally as well as in 20 metropolitan regions. The indices are calculated monthly and published with a two month lag.  I think it’s one of the better measurements of the national real estate market, especially when looking at overall trends and fluxes.

Some excerpts from the report:

The chart above depicts the annual returns of the 10-City and 20-City Composite Home Price Indices with increases of 5.4% and 4.6%, respectively, in May 2010 compared to the same month last year.

While still positive, Boston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas and Denver reported weaker annual growth rates compared to their reports from last month. Seven of the 20 MSAs are still reporting negative annual growth rates with May’s data.

“While May’s report on its own looks somewhat positive, a broader look at home price levels over the past year still do not indicate that the housing market is in any form of sustained recovery,” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Since reaching its recent trough in April 2009, the housing market has really only stabilized at this lower level. The two Composites have improved between 5 and 6% since then, but this is no better than the improvement they had registered as of October 2009. The last seven months have basically been flat.”

Below is an older Case-Shiller chart, but an interesting one.  It shows the history of home values since 1890.  You can see what an enormous boom the mid-2000s were relative to the rest of the century. 

See the full Case Shiller report here