Case-Shiller: San Diego Showing First Signs of Stabilization?
I apologize again for the multi-week radio silence here. We’ve revamped our data delivery to be able to better streamline the whole process, and from now on there will be a regular schedule of in-depth data in this space. For now though, it’s time 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. – November data is released in January).
Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for San Diego County as of November:
November 2008
Month to Month: Down 2.3%
Year to Year: Down 25.8%
Change from Peak: Down 37.9% in 36 months
The following chart shows the San Diego HPI scaled such that the November 2005 peak is 100% on the y-axis. Data on the x-axis is scaled to display the last time (pre-peak) the San Diego HPI was at or lower than it was in the latest data (January 2003).
With last month’s drop in San Diego’s Case-Shiller HPI, prices have now effectively “rewound” nearly six years. Um, wow.
Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves, so you can compare San Diego’s performance to other areas across the country:
And here’s one more chart, in which I have lined 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.
One interesting piece of data that is not visible in these graphs is the fact that San Diego’s rate of year to year price drops actually declined in November, for the first time since the market’s peak. In October, the year to year decline was 26.7%, compared to November’s 25.8%. This could be the first sign of some kind of price stabilization here in SoCal. Of course, if price drops do continue to stabilize at this rate it will take until late 2010 before we do finally reach the bottom in home prices.
