The S&P/Case-Shiller (CSI) Home Price index together with the Radar Logic (RPX) for Boston represent the most accurate indicators of the true price movement for both single family homes and the entire residential real estate market as a whole (singles, multi and condos).For August, both the CSI and RPX showed continued weakness with the CSI declining 4.74% on a year-over-year basis while the RPX dropped 8.56% over the same period.
It’s important to note that both measures are derived from sales data transacted in August which generally includes properties that under agreement in June and July, well in advance of the historic stock market and wider macroeconomic declines.
In all likelihood the dramatic declines to consumer confidence and increases in unemployment will work to place significant downward pressure on home prices.
As you can see from the chart below (click for larger), although the RPX captures a greater degree of seasonality, both series are very strongly correlated.
Also, note that the although the RPX initially gave a strong indication that this year’s seasonal uptick in prices had abated with the July release, the August release brought a boost in prices and continued the pattern that is more or less typical when compared to the last three years.
To better illustrate the drop-off in home prices and the potential length and depth of the current housing decline, I have compared BOTH the normalized price movement, annual and peak percentage changes to the Boston CSI home price index from the 80s-90s housing bust to today’s bust (ultra-hat tip to the great Massachusetts Housing Blog for the concept).
The “normalized” chart compares the normalized Boston price index from the peak of the 80s-90s bust to the peak of today’s bust.Notice that during the 80s-90s bust prices took roughly 46 months (3.8 years) to bottom out.
The “annual” chart compares the percentage change, on a year-over-year basis, to the Boston CSI from the last positive value through the decline to the first positive value at the end of the decline.
In this way, this chart captures only the months that showed monthly “annual declines”.
The “peak” chart compares the percentage change, comparing monthly Boston index values to the peak value seen just prior to the first declining month all the way through the downturn and the full recovery of home prices.
In this way, this chart captures ALL months of the downturn from the peak to trough to peak again.
As you can see the last downturn lasted 105 months (almost 9 years) peak to peak including 34 months of annual price declines during the heart of the downturn.
The final chart shows that the Boston housing market has been, in a sense, declining steadily since early 2001 when annual home price appreciation peaked and the intensity of the housing expansion began to wane (click on following chart for larger version).
It appears that that the main thrust of the housing expansion occurred “in-line” with the wider economic expansion that was fueled primarily by the dot-com bubble and that since the dot-com bust, the housing market has never been quite the same.
