by Calculated Risk on 5/25/2012 11:45:00 AM

Note: The Case-Shiller report is for March (really an average of prices in January, February and March). This data is released with a significant lag, see: House Prices and Lagged Data

Zillow Forecast: Zillow Forecast: March Case-Shiller Composite-20 Expected to Show 2.6% Decline from One Year Ago

On Tuesday, May 29th, the Case-Shiller Composite Home Price Indices for March will be released. Zillow predicts that the 20-City Composite Home Price Index (non-seasonally adjusted [NSA]) will decline by 2.6 percent on a year-over-year basis, while the 10-City Composite Home Price Index (NSA) will decline by 2.7 percent on a year-over-year basis. The seasonally adjusted (SA) month-over-month change from February to March will be 0.3 percent for both the 20 and 10-City Composite Home Price Index (SA).
...
This will be the second month in a row where both of the Case-Shiller composite indices show monthly appreciation on a seasonally adjusted basis. However prices are still down from year ago levels. Most likely, there will be some see-sawing in home prices along the bottom before we start to see a more sustained recovery.

Zillow's forecasts for Case-Shiller have been pretty close, and I expect Case-Shiller will report NSA house prices at a new post-bubble low in March.

One of the keys this year will be to watch the year-over-year change in the various house price indexes. The composite 10 and 20 indexes declined 3.6% and 3.5% respectively in February, after declining 4.1% and 3.9% in January. Zillow is forecasting a smaller year-over-year decline in March, and for the seasonally adjusted indexes to increase for the 2nd consecutive month.

		Case Shiller Composite 10		Case Shiller Composite 20
		NSA	SA	NSA	SA
Case Shiller (year ago)	March 2011	150.91	153.99	137.64	140.47
Case-Shiller (last month)	February 2012	146.90	149.36	134.20	136.71
Zillow March Forecast	YoY	-2.7%	-2.7%	-2.6%	-2.6%
	MoM	-0.1%	0.3%	-0.1%	0.3%
Zillow Forecasts1		146.8	149.8	134.1	136.9
Current Post Bubble Low		146.90	149.25	134.20	136.50
Date of Post Bubble Low		February 2012	January 2012	February 2012	January 2012
1Estimate based on Year-over-year and Month-over-month Zillow forecasts

Also from Zillow: Home Values Continue to Climb in April (released a month ahead of Case-Shiller)

Zillow’s April Real Estate Market Report, released today, shows that home values increased 0.7 percent to $147,300 from March to April. Compared to April 2011, home values are still down by 1.8 percent. This strong monthly appreciation follows March’s encouraging data point, which also had home values appreciating at a healthy clip.