by Calculated Risk on 3/02/2015 02:18:00 PM

The Case-Shiller house price indexes for December were released last Tuesday. Zillow forecasts Case-Shiller a month early - now including the National Index - and I like to check the Zillow forecasts since they have been pretty close.

From Zillow: 10- & 20-City Case-Shiller Composites Expected to Show Declines In Jan. From Dec

The December S&P/Case-Shiller (SPCS) data released [last] week showed healthy home price appreciation largely at pace with prior months, with annual growth in the U.S. National Index at 4.6 percent in December.

Annual appreciation in home values as measured by SPCS has been less than 5 percent for the past four months. We anticipate this trend to continue as annual growth in home prices slows to more normal levels between 3 percent and 5 percent. Zillow predicts the U.S. National Index to rise 4.5 percent on an annual basis in January.

The 10- and 20-City Composite Indices both experienced modest bumps in annual growth rates in December; the 10-City index rose to 4.3 percent and the 20-City Index rose to 4.5 percent – up from rates of 4.2 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively, in November. The non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) 10- and 20-City indices both rose 0.1 percent from November to December. We expect both to turn negative in January, with each predicted to fall 0.1 percent month-over-month (NSA).

All forecasts are shown in the table below. These forecasts are based on the December SPCS data release and the January 2014 Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), released Feb. 19. Officially, the SPCS Composite Home Price Indices for January will not be released until Tuesday, March 31.

So the year-over-year change in for January Case-Shiller index will probably be about the same, or a little lower, than in the December report.

Zillow Case-Shiller Forecast
	Case-Shiller Composite 10		Case-Shiller Composite 20		Case-Shiller National
	NSA	SA	NSA	SA	NSA	SA
December Actual YoY	4.3%	4.3%	4.5%	4.5%	4.6%	4.6%
January Forecast YoY	4.3%	4.3%	4.5%	4.5%	4.5%	4.5%
January Forecast MoM	-0.1%	0.6%	-0.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.5%