Monday, April 5, 2010

S&P/Case-Shiller and DataQuick (March)


Due to popular demand I'll catch up with the S&P/Case-Shiller and DataQuick numbers released last month. The January 2010 S&P/Case-Shiller was again up slightly for Los Angeles but down for the 10-city Composite.

Overall Los Angeles (including Orange County) was up 0.92% from December (compared with 0.99% from November, 0.77% from October, 0.30% from September, 0.85% from August, and 1.6% from July), now down 36.9% from its September 2006 peak, at December 2003 levels. The national (orange line, their original 10-city Composite) index is down 30.2% from its peak in June 2006.

The Low, Middle, and High tiers are no longer available without registration and were last reported here with the August update. The left column on the chart is peak to bottom; the right is peak to current month.

In contrast, the DataQuick February numbers for February show all but San Diego County were down for the month again.


Los Angeles County's median was back to $325K, down 42.7% from its peak in August 2007. Volumes were up 10% year-to-year from February 2009.

That left Los Angeles County and Orange County prices at June 2003, Ventura County at February 2003, and San Diego County at June 2002.


Finally, here is the updated Los Angeles Case-Shiller index scaled with the Los Angeles DataQuick median price history (normalized Case-Shiller's January 2000 = 100). The Case-Shiller data is a month older and a three-month average. Is DataQuick the better indicator of a falling trend here, or is it too affected by sales mix?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

The CS tiers are available on Redfin's sweetdigs and they are usually fairly quick about putting the published numbers up. Their commentary is unusually bearish for a realtor site.

Anonymous said...

Crickets....

Anonymous said...

Amusing that even though the last peak-to-trough took 6 years, now with a bubble four times as large, everyone is declaring a bottom at the end of 3.

Anonymous said...

More crickets.....

Anonymous said...

crickets are good news -- when nobody cares "it is a great time to buy!!"

Anonymous said...

Snore.

Unknown said...

More snore

Anonymous said...

"Amusing that even though the last peak-to-trough took 6 years, now with a bubble four times as large, everyone is declaring a bottom at the end of 3."

Maybe it's because the slope of the correction was 8 times steeper.

Anonymous said...

this blog is deader than Michael Jackson....

Anonymous said...

for jumbos, what is the loan to income ratio that people can get right now?

I know two families bidding on 3 million dollar 90402 houses. Neither of them has family income over 400k

How much of a loan will they be able to get ?

Anonymous said...

New post please!

Anonymous said...

I bet if you showed the Franklin 90402 to every person in America you would have 290 million people who told you it was crazy to pay $3 million for a normal house in the Franklin 90402

But you don't need 290 million people to be excited about the Franklin 90402 to keep prices high. You just need about 50 people a year who are eager to pay $3 million to live there

Prices are set on the margin, and a marginal 50 people a year can hold the prices at $3 million

The argument on this board is about whether those 50 people a year will show up, checkbook in hand. The bulls say yes, they will keep showing up. The bears say no, they won't.

But no one here, no bull and no bear, thinks that the average person in America or even the average affluent person in America thinks $3 million is a fair price to live in the Franklin 90402. We all know that America thinks $3 million is crazy.

Anonymous said...

This board is dead. Let's address the issue of whether someone who is certain they must buy now should buy in PP or in Franklin 90402.

Just to be clear, most people would assume that PP is a better buy than Franklin 90402

In fact I bet if you showed the Franklin 90402 to every person in America you would have 290 million people who told you it was crazy to pay $3 million for a normal house in the Franklin 90402

But you don't need 290 million people to be excited about the Franklin 90402 to keep prices high. You just need about 50 people a year who are eager to pay $3 million to live in Franklin 90402

Prices are set on the margin, and a marginal 50 people a year can hold the prices at $3 million

The argument on this board is about whether those 50 people a year will show up, checkbook in hand. The bulls say yes, they will keep showing up. The bears say no, they won't.

But no one here, no bull and no bear, thinks that the average person in America or even the average affluent person in America thinks $3 million is a fair price to live in the Franklin 90402. We all know that America thinks $3 million is crazy.

Now what about the people that live in PP? Well we all know the same house on the same piece of land that costs $3 in Franklin 90402 costs $1.9 right now in PP.

No one who owns in PP will admit to your face that they really wish they could have afforded the Franklin 90402. You won't find a single person who admits that the Franklin 90402 was their dream and that they settled for PP because they couldn't afford $3mil.

prices are set on the margin. There are people today with $3 million in buying power that know they can buy in PP for $1.9 that instead choose to spend $3 million in Franklin 90402.

If you as a person don't feel compelled and driven to own in the 90402, if you aren't hungry for the 90402, then don't buy there. Because everyone that buys in the Franklin 90402 is paying a huge premium. If the premium isn't worth it to you then don't pay it.

There are enough people out there right now who have the $3mil who would rather blow the whole $3 mil in Franklin 90402 than blow $1.9 in PP. Are these people smart of are they dumb? Who knows. But actions speak louder than words.

Anonymous said...

yawn. We need more people to post here