“Home prices here have also not declined as steadily as they have in other markets, as there have been regular periods each year during the post-peak decline that prices have actually increased. With the latest data, it looks like the third such period is now over, and home prices are about to continue downward again, likely until Q2 next year at the earliest.”

Actually, those all appear to be repeat, annual fluctuations around the same months each year.

Some of the other markets show the same kinds of fluctuations during the same time periods — but what is interesting is that the other markets’ macro-economic trends are swamping the annual signature. Boston’s macro trend is much smaller, allowing the annual fluctuations to stick out more readily.

http://lightsblue.com/homeprices

I threw this together over the last long weekend, after downloading the excel spreadsheet and creating charts for about the 5th time.