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case shiller home price index

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What Today's Case-Shiller Home Price Index Doesn't Show You About the Housing Market

By , Associate Editor, Money Morning • @JimBach22 -

Case Shiller

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, a widely followed benchmark for home prices, showed a slow growth in home prices amid an unimpressive housing recovery.

But given the factors underlying this recovery, and the activity in the housing market, this should come as no surprise.

Here's why this housing recovery just can’t seem to take off…

Case-Shiller Index: Is This the Housing Market Bottom?

By , Contributing Writer, Money Morning -

Analysts, government officials and certainly homebuyers are spending hours trying to figure out if we have reached the housing market bottom.

Yesterday's (Tuesday's) data would seem to suggest the bottom is a bit bumpier than most people think.

According to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 cities, home prices declined 3.5% from a year ago, while the 10-city composite slipped 3.6%. That meant fresh new post-bubble lows for home prices.

New-home sales in March also fell from their February level, the Commerce Department said. Together, they pointed to a more lackluster market.

"We're still in a slow period," said Robert Shiller, who co-founded the index that bears his name. "We're still in a funk."

But behind those numbers, there are reasons to be hopeful.

With borrowing costs near all-time lows, an economy that's bouncing back and cheap foreclosure properties attracting buyers, housing could be on the mend.

Knowing whether the housing market has bottomed out is important because nobody wants to pay thousands of dollars more for a property that could decline in value next week, next month or next year.

"The perception that prices could go lower...that's certainly keeping some people on the sidelines," Louis Cammarosano, general manager at HomeGain told Bankrate.com.

That's a problem because until buyers come back in significant numbers, the housing market can't completely regain its health. And without a housing market recovery, there won't be a real economic recovery.

But while we'd all like to know where the bottom is - pinpointing the exact date really doesn't matter.

Here's why...

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Case-Shiller Home Price Index and Home Sales: What the Latest U.S. Housing Market Data Show

By , Contributing Writer, Money Morning -

The latest U.S. housing market data released Tuesday underscore the persisting trend of uneven performance in the industry.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed prices hit post-bubble lows in February, and U.S. home sales data show that while not all housing news is dismal, a strong and stable recovery is a long way off.

The U.S. housing sector has been a drag on the economy since a home price bubble burst and helped cause the 2007-2009 recession. While many economists maintain that a budding recovery is blooming in the troubled sector, recent housing market data are simply another wake-up call.

Here's a look at the numbers.

Case-Shiller Home Price Index Falls

The Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 cities revealed a price drop from January to February of 0.8% (on a non-seasonally adjusted basis). The 10-city index also fell 0.8%.

The 20-city index declined 3.5% from a year ago, while the 10-city composite slipped 3.6%.

"Nine housing markets and both composites hit post crisis lows," David Blitzer, a spokesman for S&P, told CNN Money. Included in the nine markets are Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Las Vegas and New York.

Blitzer went on to note, "While there might be pieces of good news in this report, such as some improvements in many annual rates of return, February 2012 data confirm that, broadly speaking, home prices continued to decline in the early months of the year."

Foreclosures and other distressed property sales continue to be the main challenge for home prices, Pat Newport, an analyst for IHS Global Insight relayed to CNN.

"We still have 6 million homeowners who are late on their payments," said Newport. "We'll still have lots of foreclosures, which will depress prices."

In fact, with January's mammoth $26 billion mortgage settlement between five major banks and a group of state attorneys general, foreclosures that had been held up for a year or more are now moving forward.

"Enough homes are in the foreclosure pipeline to keep house prices falling through much of this year," Celia Chen, a housing economist at Moody's Analytics, told the Los Angeles Times.

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Case-Shiller Home Price Index: U.S. Housing Market Nearing Bottom in 2012

By , Associate Editor, Money Morning -

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed another decline for November 2011, its third straight monthly loss, as the U.S. housing market trends toward a bottom this year.

Home prices in both the 10-city and 20-city measures of the Home Price Index fell 1.3% from October. Prices fell 3.6% and 3.7% from November 2010, respectively.

The Case-Shiller Home Price Index has fallen steadily since September. Prices in October fell 1.1% and 1.2% from the month before for the 10-city and 20-city indices.

The home price report was on par with what economists expected, as they see this year bringing an end to drastic price declines.

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