That last paragraph just makes no sense. In the last 19 months (since July 07), the only city to hold it’s value better (of the 7 mentioned) than Seattle was Boston and Seattle is ranked 8 out of 20 from the full list.

Looks like Seattle is weathering the storm better than most – according to the data.

From the last graph, you can see Seattle has been in decline for fewer months than other cities. This is also a positive sign for Seattle.

Sorry I wasn’t clear. What I was trying to say is that when you look at each of the 20 Case-Shiller markets 19 months from their respective peaks, Seattle had fallen further than 15 of the cities, with only the four listed having fallen further than Seattle.

You can move the graphs and say that the length of decline is different, but you can’t move the graphs and say the *rate* of decline is different.

Mark, I still don’t understand what you’re trying to say.

In the 19 months following their respective peaks, here’s the average monthly rate of decline for each market:

-2.12% Miami, FL
-1.71% Las Vegas, NV
-1.58% Los Angeles, CA
-1.29% Atlanta, GA
-1.23% Seattle, WA
-1.22% Phoenix, AZ
-1.22% Tampa, FL
-1.11% Portland, OR
-1.08% Minneapolis, MN
-0.76% Cleveland, OH
-0.75% San Francisco, CA
-0.75% Washington, DC
-0.69% Detroit, MI
-0.61% Dallas, TX
-0.60% Chicago, IL
-0.50% Denver, CO
-0.41% San Diego, CA
-0.39% New York, NY
-0.38% Boston, MA
N/A Charlotte, NC
-0.75% Composite 10
-0.84% Composite 20

So yes, when comparing rates of decline since the peak, Seattle is falling fifth-fastest.

Right – you can’t do that and conclude one market is *currently* falling faster than another market. The only way to determine that is to look at what they are doing now.

Also – to say Seattle is falling more rapidly is ignoring the national trends during the last 19 months. Seattle’s housing market decline started the month the Dow started dropping in huge chunks due to national housing concerns. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2007. All markets started to accelerate their decline at this point and Seattle’s decline was not as steep as most. You can see this on the graph. You are using this as Seattle’s starting point. You are then using this point to compare against SF in 14 months earlier. The 14 months leading up to the huge losses in 2007 were relatively calm.

Again, you can move the graphs and make some conclusions, like Seattle peaked later than SF, but you can’t say it’s decline is currently steeper, because during the same time period, SF’s decline is steeper.

This is great info Tim. Thank you!
Was any forecasting analysis done to give an indication of how much further the Seattle market will decline? So the question is: if there’s a slight recovery in Seattle similar to what happened last Spring (’08), will the market still decline as it did after the slight ‘08 recovery?

Good stuff Tim. And you’re definitely right about the sequential monthly rate of decline in the last 19 months.

If we really want to nerd-out…Would be cool to know what the compounded monthly growth rate (CAGR) is for these cities in the 19 months following the peak. The average growth rate can be misleading…for example if you go from $100 to $50 in one month (50% decline) and then $50 to $75 the next month (50% increase) then the average growth rate is 0%, which doesn’t really make sense given you started with $100 and now have $75.

Clint, I used the wrong terminology in my comment above. The percentages quoted are in fact the compounded monthly rate, not the straight averages, for the reason you state.

The formula for calculating compounded growth (or decline) rates is actually fairly simple:

{ ([End Value] / [Start Value]) ^ (1/[# Periods]) } – 1

It’s even easier when I just plug the numbers all into the handy Excel spreadsheet I created for doing this exact calculation.

Anyway, I apologize for the confusion.

RE: Mark @ 11:04 AM –

Right – you can’t do that and conclude one market is *currently* falling faster than another market. The only way to determine that is to look at what they are doing now.

I don’t think I said that Seattle was currently falling fifth-fastest. I was just comparing the speed of the declines in each market since the peak. Sorry if I wasn’t clear about that.

Tim – you did say currently. You said we were going to catch up to the other markets – which means we are declining faster (right now). There’s no other way to catch up.

When I look at the last 19 months, most cities have had a faster rate of decline than Seattle. Given this fact, do you still think we’re going to catch up?

Mark, since the only instances of the words “current” or “currently” on this page are from your comments, I wonder if you could clarify what I said that you interpreted to mean “Seattle is falling faster than other markets at the present time.”

[...] Sweet Digs « Case-Shiller: Seattle Home Price Drops Not Done Yet April 30, [...]

When you said the following:

we have more ground to cover in a shorter amount of time in order to “catch up” to what’s happening in the rest of the country.

If you didn’t mean we were catching up now (currently) and were declining faster than others, what did you mean?

Mark, it seems like you’re reading things into the post that aren’t there. I was just pondering a possible explanation for why Seattle’s line in that last chart would be over 5 percentage points below the Composite-20 line (”the rest of the country”) as of Seattle’s latest update.

It is a fact that prices in Seattle have declined faster since the peak than they did in most other markets tracked by Case-Shiller. I do not expect that will continue, but one possible explanation for why it has happened would be that we are “catching up.”

Although Seattle’s decline has been going on for less time than all but 2 markets (Portland’s is also at 19 months and Charlotte is at 18) our 21% total drop from the peak is already larger than five other markets that began declining before us.

So we are already “catching up,” but that does not mean we are currently declining faster than any other market.

Thanks for the data, Tim. Any bets Mark is a realtor?

Mark is definitely a realtor. I’ll put money on it.

No, not a realtor. Planning on buying and I visit Redfin a lot.

Look – I tried to let everyone know that Tim was comparing Seattle in July 2007 with San Diego in 2005. July of 2007 was the worst price drop in history and somehow that means Seattle is dropping ‘relatively rapidly’ and needs to ‘catch up’. Tim has concluded that the individual peaks are related, and we should be able to move graphs to be able to predict future trends. You can’t do that with stocks that fall in a bubble, and you can’t do it with other markets, including real estate.

Anyway, I dropped it. It’s Tim’s forum.