Monday, February 21, 2011

And the Housing Decline Slumps On…

NOTE… Be sure to bookmark the Scary Housing Dashboard for a real-time view of all the housing markets discussed in this post.

With interested industry groups and Bullish stock analysts talking up the notion of a “housing recovery” it may come as a surprise to learn that eleven (over half) of the markets tracked by the S&P/Case-Shiller home prices indices are now setting fresh new lows.

With price declines continuing and, in most of these eleven markets, actually declining at a progressively faster rate, it should come as no wonder that homebuilder sentiment and new and existing home sales remain historically weak.

Atlanta takes the number one position as the market with seasonally adjusted prices declining at the fastest rate dropping -7.91% annually with Chicago coming in second at a -7.61% decline, Detroit at a -7.11% decline, Portland at -6.97%, Phoenix at -6.42%, Seattle at -4.74%, Charlotte North Carolina at -4.25%, Tampa at -4.01%, Miami at -3.58%, Las Vegas at -3.53% and finally New York at -1.66%.

Further, it’s important to note that as of the latest data-point, Detroit has seen over 15 years of house price appreciation literally wiped out by the current collapse leaving prices at the same level seen in mid 1994 while both Atlanta and Phoenix prices have fallen back over 10 years to the level of late 1999.

Phoenix has backed up to early 2000, Chicago is back to early 2002, Tampa and Miami are back to early 2003, New York is back to early 2004, Charlotte is back to late 2004 and Portland and Seattle are back to early 2005.