Case Shiller and FHFA Housing Data

In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses housing data released by Case Shiller and the FHFA.

• Housing data from two different sources, Case Shiller and the FHFA, both show continued improvement in residential markets.  Case Shiller data for the 3^rd quarter was up 3.6 percent from a year ago and 2.2 percent from the previous quarter.  By comparison, FHFA quarterly data showed a 4 percent gain from one year ago and was up 1.1 percent from the previous quarter.
• In addition to the quarterly data, both Case Shiller and FHFA reported on monthly house prices.  Case Shiller reported that September prices were up 2.1 and 3.0 percent on the year for the 10- and 20-city indexes and home prices rose in each measure by 0.3 percent from August.  By comparison, FHFA’s monthly data showed a 0.2 percent increase in September.
• Drilling down, Case Shiller and FHFA both show huge price increases in Phoenix, up 1.1 percent in the month and 20.4 percent in the year according to Case Shiller or up 26.2 percent in the year with FHFA data.
• Are fiscal cliff worries holding back price growth in big government towns?  Case Shiller data show that in spite of healthy gains over the year in Washington, DC and Tampa, FL (3.2 and5.9 percent, respectively) prices were roughly flat in both areas from the 2^nd to 3^rd quarters.
• FHFA data shows price performance by state, and Arizona tops the list with 20 percent price growth over last year.  The District of Columbia, Idaho, North Dakota, and Nevada round out the top 5 performers.  The bottom 6 states show year over year weakening in prices and were mostly in the Northeast; Illinois was the only non-Northeastern state in this group.