Comments on September Case-Shiller and FHFA House Prices

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Case-Shiller: National House Price Index "Continued to Decline" to 10.6% year-over-year increase in September

Excerpt:

Both the Case-Shiller House Price Index (HPI) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) HPI for September were released today. Here is a graph of the month-over-month (MoM) change in the Case-Shiller National Index Seasonally Adjusted (SA).

The Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for “September” is a 3-month average of July, August and September closing prices. July closing prices include some contracts signed in May, so there is a significant lag to this data.

The MoM decrease in Case-Shiller was at -0.76% seasonally adjusted. This was the third consecutive MoM decrease, and slightly less than the decrease last month. This suggests prices fell sharply for September closings.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, prices declined in all of the Case-Shiller cities on a month-to-month basis. The largest monthly declines seasonally adjusted were in San Francisco (-2.2%), Phoenix (-2.1%) and Las Vegas (-2.1%). San Francisco has fallen 10.3% from the peak in May 2022.
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The September Case-Shiller report is mostly for contracts signed in the May through August period when 30-year mortgage rates were in the low-to-mid 5% range. The October report will mostly be for contracts signed in the June through September period - when rates were mostly in the low-to-mid 5% range (except September).

The impact from higher rates in September and October will not show up significantly for a few more months.

There is much more in the article. You can subscribe at https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/