Comments on August House Prices Case-Schiller and FHFA

on Estimated risk per 25.10.2022 10:02:00

Today in the Calculated Risk Real Estate newsletter: Case-Schiller: National House Price Index ‘continues to slide’ to 13.0% year-on-year in August

Excerpt:

The Case-Schiller House Price Index (HPI) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index for August were released today. Here is a month-to-month (MoM) chart of the national Case-Schiller seasonally adjusted (SA) index.

The Case-Shiller House Price Index for “August” is the 3-month average of closing prices for June, July and August. June closing prices include some contracts signed in April, so there is a significant lag behind that date.

Case-Shiller MoM Housing PricesThe monthly decline for Case-Shiller was -0.86% seasonally adjusted. This was the second consecutive monthly decline and the largest since February 2010. Since this includes closings in June and July, it can be assumed that prices fell sharply over August.

Seasonally adjusted prices have declined monthly in all Case-Schiller towns. The largest seasonally adjusted monthly declines were in San Francisco (-3.7%), Seattle (-2.9%) and San Diego (-2.5%). San Francisco is down 8.2% from its peak in May 2022.

The August Case-Shiller report mainly refers to contracts signed between April and July, when 30-year mortgage rates were in the low to mid-5% range. The September report will mainly focus on contracts signed between May and August, when rates were also in the low to mid 5% range.

The impact of higher rates in September and October won’t show up for several more months.