Case-Shiller: Home Prices Flat vs. December 2008

It’s time for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI). Keep in mind that all of the charts in this series of posts are based on the seasonally-adjusted data provided by S&P. For the full source data behind this post, plus non-seasonally adjusted data, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website (requires free registration). 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. – December data is released in February).

Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the Los Angeles area (which Case-Shiller defines as LA and Orange Counties) as of December:

Fourteen of the twenty metro areas tracked by Case-Shiller saw an increase in their respective seasonally-adjusted HPIs between November and December (same number as November). Atlanta, Cleveland, Miami, Tampa, New York, and Chicago all marked seasonally-adjusted drops month-to-month.

Here’s a look at LA’s latest tiered data, back through 2000:

All three tiers saw increases in their seasonally-adjusted indices in December, from 0.7% for the high tier to 2.4% for the low tier.

Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves:

Here’s our peak decline 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.

Here’s the flip side of the peak decline chart—a graph of just 2009, indexed to January = 100%:

Boston, LA, DC, San Diego, and San Francisco all ended 2009 higher than they began it. The tax credit boost was not enough to pull the rest of the markets up for the year.