Friday, January 22, 2010

More Pain, Less Gain: S&P/Case-Shiller Preview for November 2009

As I demonstrated in prior posts, given their strong correlation (r-squared generally over .90 for each market), the home price indices provided daily by Radar Logic, averaged monthly, can effectively be used as a preview of the monthly S&P/Case-Shiller home price indices.

The current Radar Logic 25 MSA data reported on residential real estate transactions (condos, multi and single family homes) that settled as late as November 20 is indicating that the price bounce seen as a result of the government housing tax credit peaked in August declined and now has gone flat.

Further, although the S&P/Case-Shiller Composite 20 series has reported six consecutive monthly increases, the RPX 25 is giving a clear indication that the November results will likely be flat to a slight decline on a month-to-month basis.