Case-Shiller: Boston Home Prices Still Experiencing Moderate Declines
It’s time once again for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI).
For an explanation of how the Case-Shiller data is calculated, check out their methodology pdf. Also remember that the data released on the last Tuesday of a given month is for the period two months prior (i.e. – February data is released in April).
Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Boston area* as of February:
February 2009
Month to Month: Down 1.3%
Year to Year: Down 7.2%
Change from Peak: Down 18.5% in 41 months
The following chart shows the Boston area HPI scaled such that the September 2005 peak is 100% on the y-axis. Data on the x-axis is scaled to display the last time (pre-peak) the Boston area HPI was at or lower than it was in the latest data (February 2003).
Price drops in Boston did not show much sign of moderating in February, but if the past few years are any indication, it seems likely that they will experience a slight spring uptick beginning with next month’s data. As of February home prices in Boston have “rewound” exactly six years.
Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves, so you can compare the Boston area’s performance to other areas across the country:
And here’s our final chart, in which we line up the peak Case-Shiller HPI value for each of Redfin’s markets, so we can see how long each market has been declining, and how much it has dropped from the peak.
Boston’s overall decline is still by far the smallest among the seven Redfin markets tracked by Case-Shiller, and is the fifth-smallest overall out of all 20 Case-Shiller cities. Way over at the other end of I-90, Seattle is an interesting contrast to Boston. Prices there have only been declining for 19 months (vs. 41 in Boston), but have already fallen 20.9%, compared to a decline of just 18.5% here.
*[Case-Shiller defines Boston as the entire Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all or part of the following counties: Essex MA, Middlesex MA, Norfolk MA, Plymouth MA, Suffolk MA, Rockingham NH, and Strafford NH.]
