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Monday, April 23, 2012

FNC: February Residential Property Values Down 0.8%

by Calculated Risk on 4/23/2012 11:08:00 AM

In addition to Case-Shiller, CoreLogic, and LPS, I'm also watching the FNC, Zillow and RadarLogic indexes.

From FNC: February Residential Property Values Down 0.8%

FNC’s latest Residential Price Index™ (RPI), released Friday, indicates that U.S. residential property values continued to show signs of persistent weakening - ending in February with a seventh consecutive month-to-month decline. Despite sharply rising activities in existing home sales and new housing starts from a year ago, prices on non-distressed home sales (excluding foreclosure auction sales, REO sales, and short sales) continue to slide, down 0.8% from February or 3.0% from a year ago.
...
All three RPI composites (the National, 30-MSA, and 10-MSA indices) show similar month-to-month declines in February, down about a percentage point from January. ... The indices’ year-to-year trends continue to show signs of improvement. According to the national RPI, home prices nationwide declined at a seasonally adjusted rate of 3.0% in February, the slowest pace in the last 20 months. The year-to-year declines at the nation’s top housing markets, as indicated by the 30- and 10-MSA composites, have also decelerated to below 4.0% -- their slowest pace since May 2010.
Click on graph for larger image.

This graph is based on the FNC index (four composites) through February 2012. The FNC indexes are hedonic price indexes using a blend of sold homes and real-time appraisals.

The indexes are generally showing less of a year-over-year decline in February (I think prices will fall seasonally through the March report). This is the smallest year-over-year decline in the FNC index since the housing tax credit expired.

The February Case-Shiller index will be released tomorrow, and the consensus is for a 3.3% decrease in year-over-year prices (NSA) in February. (Zillow is forecasting that Case-Shiller will report a 3.5% decline for the Composite 10 index, and a 3.4% decline for the Composite 20).