Tuesday, August 26, 2014

"How Home Prices Have Slowed Down, in Five Charts"

From Real Time Economics:
U.S. home prices aren’t rising as fast as they were a year ago following a slowdown in sales triggered by last year’s jump in mortgage rates.

The latest S&P/Case-Shiller index shows that home prices rose 6.2% in June from a year earlier. The big questions now are whether, when, and at what level do year-over-year price changes normalize after the volatile decade that began with a sharp spike and then collapse in prices.
On a monthly basis, prices rose 1% in the Case-Shiller 20-city index. After adjusting for seasonal factors, prices were down 0.2% for the second straight month in June, though S&P has cautioned that its seasonally adjusted series isn’t reliable right now. The unusually high level of foreclosed property sales over the last five years has distorted the seasonal adjustment because those sales don’t follow a normal seasonal pattern.....MORE