Case-Shiller: Bay Area Home Prices Tick Up Slightly March to April
It’s time for our monthly check-in of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (HPI). For the full source data behind this post, plus seasonally adjusted and tiered price data, hit the S&P/Case-Shiller website.
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. – April data is released in June).
Here are the basic Case-Shiller stats for the San Francisco Bay Area* as of April:
April 2009
Month to Month: Up 0.6%
Year to Year: Down 28.0%
Change from Peak: Down 45.8% in 35 months
The following chart shows the Bay Area HPI scaled such that the May 2006 peak is 100% on the y-axis. Data on the x-axis is scaled to display the last time (pre-peak) the Bay Area HPI was at or lower than it was in the latest data (June 2000).
April’s slight uptick in San Francisco’s HPI marks the first increase of any kind since early 2007.
Here’s a chart of Case-Shiller HPIs for all the markets that Redfin serves, so you can compare the Bay Area’s performance to other areas across the country:
To recap, we have seen the following interventions in recent months meant to boost the housing market:
- $8k first-time buyer tax credit
- 4.5% – 5% mortgage rates
- various moratoriums on foreclosures
- numerous federal programs encouraging loan workouts
The apparent result of this host of actions has been a flattening to very slight upticks seen in the chart above, in a month that is historically one of the strongest of the year for the real estate market. I guess you can color me underwhelmed.
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.
Does April’s uptick mark the end of price drops in San Francisco? Personally I doubt it, but we’ll probably have to wait until the fall before we really know for sure.
*[Case-Shiller defines the San Francisco Bay Area as the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of the following counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo.]
