Big news real estate aficionados! Case Shiller, the Standard & Poor’s index that economists treat as the most reliable measure of home prices, reports this morning that May 2009 home prices increased .45% over April; this is the first such increase since July 2006.
Once we adjust for seasonality – home prices tend to increase in the summer – the gain becomes a loss nationwide of .2% . But even after this adjustment, the Bay Area (.7%), DC (.7%), Chicago (.5%) and Boston (.3%) still gained month-over-month. Year-over-year, prices nationwide are down 17%.
As usual, we’ve prepared a little table that shows the month when each market peaked, the month in the past when prices were last at this level (“the equivalent month”), the size of the drop from the market’s peak, the change since May 2008, and the change since April 2009:
|
Date of Peak |
Equivalent Month |
Drop from Peak |
YoY Change |
MoM Change |
|
|
LA Area |
Apr-06 |
Jul-03 |
-41.4% |
-19.8% |
-0.9% |
|
San Diego |
Mar-06 |
Jul-02 |
-42.3% |
-18.5% |
-0.3% |
|
Bay Area |
Mar-06 |
Aug-00 |
-45.1% |
-26.1% |
0.7% |
|
DC Area |
Mar-06 |
Dec-03 |
-32.8% |
-14.9% |
0.7% |
|
Chicago Area |
Mar-07 |
Sep-02 |
-26.4% |
-17.5% |
0.5% |
|
Boston Area |
Nov-05 |
Dec-02 |
-18.0% |
-7.2% |
0.3% |
|
New York Area |
May-06 |
Apr-04 |
-20.9% |
-12.2% |
-0.1% |
|
Seattle Area |
Jul-07 |
Apr-05 |
-22.0% |
-16.6% |
-0.8% |
|
Composite-20 |
May-06 |
Apr-03 |
-32.0% |
-17.1% |
-0.2% |