Case-Shiller Home Price Index

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Case-Shiller Housing Price Index At a Glance

Composite 20 Index: 158.16
Monthly Change: Down 2.2%
Composite 10 Index: 169.78
Monthly Change: Down 2.1%

Technorati Tags: Case-Shiller Index, housing prices, home prices

Home Price Declines Worsen As We Enter the Fourth Quarter of 2008
According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices
New York, December 30, 2008 – Data through October 2008, released today by Standard & Poor’s for
its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, shows continued
broad based declines in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States, with 14 of
the 20 metro areas showing record rates of annual decline and 14 now reporting declines in excess of
10% versus October 2007.

The chart above depicts the annual returns of the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite Home
Price Indices. Following the lead of the 14 metro areas described above, the 10-City and 20-City
Composites set new records, with annual declines of 19.1% and 18.0%, respectively.
“The bear market continues; home prices are back to their March, 2004 levels.” says David M. Blitzer,
Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Both composite indices and 14 of the 20 metro
areas are reporting new record rates of decline. As of October 2008, the 10-City Composite is down
25.0% from its mid-2006 peak, and the 20-City Composite is down 23.4%. In October, we also saw three new markets enter the ‘double-digit’ club. Atlanta, Seattle and Portland are reporting annual rates of
decline of 10.5%, 10.2% and 10.1%, respectively. While not yet experiencing as severe a contraction as
in the Sunbelt, it seems the Pacific Northwest and Mid-Atlantic South is not immune to the overall
demise in the housing market.”
Three of the metro areas have given back, on average, more than 30% of the value of homes since
October of last year. Phoenix remains the weakest market, reporting an annual decline of 32.7%,
followed by Las Vegas, down 31.7%, and San Francisco down 31.0%. Miami, Los Angeles, and San
Diego were close behind with annual declines of 29.0%, 27.9% and 26.7%, respectively.
Monthly data also do not show much improvement in the national housing market. All 20 metro areas,
and the two composites, posted their second consecutive monthly decline. In addition, six of the MSAs
had their largest monthly decline on record – Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, Minneapolis, Tampa and
Washington. Most of the positive monthly data recorded in the spring and summer months, merely
reflects seasonal patterns in home prices, as opposed to a turnaround in the downward spiral in national
home prices.
Dallas and Charlotte faired the best in October in terms of relative year-over-year returns. Still in
negative territory, their declines remained in low single digits of -3.0% and -4.4%, respectively. It should
be noted, however, that both of these values are worse than those reported in the September data. In
addition, Charlotte also reported its second consecutive largest monthly decline on record, down 1.8%.
Cleveland and Denver were the only markets that showed any improvement in its year-over-year returns
compared to last month’s report.
The table below summarizes the results for October 2008. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are
revised for the 24 prior months, based on the receipt of additional source data. More than 21 years of
history for these data series is available, and can be accessed in full by going to