...in housing price decline - according to the latest Case Shiller Housing Price Index released today for October 2008. Nationwide, housing prices fell in the 20-city index for the 22nd consecutive month and set a year over year record decline in October of 18%. Phoenix metro leads the way with the steepest decline, however, just edging out Las Vegas with a 32.7% annual decline. Las Vegas is at 31.7%. And of course one year ago wasn't the peak of our market. So total declines have been much greater. According to John Wake, over at ArizonaRealEstateNotebook.com, total price declines from peak are about 41%. He has some more thoughts on the index on his blog here.
I'm not as optimistic as John about us finding a bottom in early to mid-2009 for a variety of reasons, including continuing and worsening job loss in Phoenix, the tepid efforts at loan modification so far by banks and the the incentives I wrote about a couple of weeks ago for people in Arizona to simply walk away from their homes, thus exacerbating the price declines. Hopefully John is right and I'm wrong in this case.
Here (pdf) is the full release from S&P with the Case Shiller index today. It has some nice charts and graphs to give you a better idea of the declines over the past year. Here is the NYTimes' take on the index.
Paul:
Great data you're sharing here. In recent weeks, I have interviewed several experts in Arizona housing for my news blog, www.ArizonaNotebook.com. Most say this housing region could see a rebound in late 2009, or later. Only one speculated it could happen by mid-2009.
Posted by: Mike Padgett | January 04, 2009 at 03:15 PM
What is odd is the Phoenix metro area was barely touched by prior national real estate downturns. Not only is our real estate market badly hit, but the number of people moving to our fine state has dramatically decreased. That creates additional issues. Who is going to buy all those vacant homes?
Posted by: arizona homeowner insurance | January 04, 2009 at 03:15 PM