S&P/Case-Shiller: April 2010

Today’s release of the S&P/Case-Shiller (CSI) home price indices for April 2010 (browse the dashboard) reported that the non-seasonally adjusted Composite-10 price index increased 0.72% since March indicating that the government's housing tax gimmick worked to lift prices into the expiration.

It's important to note that since the CSI data is a three month rolling average, it will take until the July reporting period (i.e. the September release) to get beyond tax stimulated home sales so it will take some time to see what the true "organic" (non-stimulated) housing trends look like.

The 10-city composite index increased 4.61% as compared to April 2009 while the 20-city composite increased 3.81% over the same period.

Topping the list of regional peak decliners was Las Vegas at -56.21%, Phoenix at -51.60%, Miami at -48.36%, Detroit at -46.63% and Tampa at -42.42%.

Additionally, both of the broad composite indices show significant peak declines slumping -30.46% for the 10-city national index and -30.00% for the 20-city national index on a peak comparison basis.

To better visualize today’s results use Blytic.com to view the full release.

Also, follow the S&P/Case-Shiller dashboard.

The following chart (click for larger version) shows the percent change to single family home prices given by the Case-Shiller Indices as compared to each metros respective price peak set between 2005 and 2007.

The following chart (click for larger version) shows the percent change to single family home prices given by the Case-Shiller Indices as on a year-over-year basis.

The following chart (click for larger version) shows the percent change to single family home prices given by the Case-Shiller Indices as on a month-to-month basis.

Additionally, in order to add some historical context to the perspective, I updated my “then and now” CSI charts that compare our current circumstances to the data seen during 90s housing decline.

To create the following annual charts I simply aligned the CSI data from the last month of positive year-over-year gains for both the current decline and the 90s housing bust and plotted the data with side-by-side columns (click for larger version).

What’s most interesting about this particular comparison is that it highlights both how young the current housing decline is and clearly shows that the latest bust has surpassed the prior bust in terms of intensity.

The “peak” chart compares the percentage change, comparing monthly CSI 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.