Todays CoreLogic® Home Price Index Report Shows Sixth Consecutive Month-Over-Month Decline
Year-Over-Year Declines Have Continued for the Last Eighteen Months
Home prices including distressed sales, declined on a year-over-year basis by 3.1 percent in January 2012 and by 1.0 percent compared to January 2012, the sixth consecutive monthly decline.
Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices declined by 0.9 percent in January 2012 compared to January 2011, but that same metric posted a month-over-month gain, rising 0.7 percent in January. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.
Goldman Backpedals On Housing Recovery, Delays "Housing Bottom" Forecast To Mid-2013
(from Zerohedge.com): back in December of last year, the same firm made a surprising forecast, being the first of many (as others naturally jumped on the Goldman bandwagon), calling for an imminent housing bottom. Naturally, we scoffed at said proclamation. Two months later, which have seen two months of deteriorating conditions and declining prices, Goldman is out, saying that it may have just been kidding. From Goldman's Hui Shan: "In December 2011 we published a new house price model for 147 metro areas that pointed to a decline of around 3% from mid-2011 through mid-2012 before stabilizing in the year thereafter. Excess supply and negative house price momentum were the main drivers of the projected decline over the subsequent four quarters. In the year thereafter, the model suggested that house prices would stabilize as the negative momentum faded. Our model also pointed to substantial variation in house price appreciation across metro areas. Although city-by-city house price dynamics are particularly difficult to model, we projected increases in Detroit, Miami and Cleveland, but significant declines in Portland, New York and Atlanta during the next two years. Since publication of this forecast--which was based on Case-Shiller house price data up to 2011Q2--house prices have weakened anew....The implications of these changes are threefold: First, we now see a somewhat weaker near-term house price outlook. Specifically, we forecast that house prices will decline by 3.3% from 2011Q3 until 2012Q3, and by an additional 1.1% between 2012Q3 and 2013Q3. Second, the expected bottom in house prices is pushed out from end-2012 to mid-2013. Third, the long-run outlook for house prices is not significantly affected by our update." So for anyone basing their housing recovery call on Goldman, sorry - Goldman was only kidding. Again.
If The Guilty (Mortgage Mafia) Are Never Punished, Housing Will Never Recover (And The Rent IS Too Damn High)
March 1, 2012 By Lee Adler
The following is the executive summary of the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition Housing Update. The complete report with illustrative charts and analysis is available to subscribers here.
Housing data continues to be mixed. Lagging closed sales data shows prices still declining. However, the most current sales data represents January closings, which were mostly sales that went under contract in November 2011. That tells us nothing about the current market. Real time listings data, which over time has correlated well with subsequently reported sales data, is actually up on a year over year basis. The supply side of the law of supply and demand is working. There’s less supply offered at these low levels and seller asking prices have firmed up because of that. But the demand side is still broken in spite of an apparent increase in buyer “willingness.” …The number of buyers may have increased, but huge numbers of sales are falling through because of problems with financing. Appraisers, unwilling and unable to see prices leveling out, continue to apply downward time adjustments resulting in one third of contracts blowing up. The willingness to buy is there, but the ability to finance is not. At the same time, a high percentage of sales being all cash suggests that many buyers are sensing intrinsic value in some markets. Unfortunately for the market, value and price isn’t the same thing.
