![CHART OF THE DAY: Home Prices Collapsing Even Faster
The Case-Shiller has been signalling[sic] an improvement in the second derivative of housing prices for a few months, and in the latest report it even showed a sequential increase. But check out the NAR’s numbers for all of Q2. The year-over-year drop in the median sales price of single family homes showed its worst decline ever. They didn’t even have a second derivative gain improvement.
Though we appreciate a good Chart o’ Doom, we do feel the need to point out certain tricks used to arrive at Doom. In this case, the NAR uses median home prices, whereas the Case-Shiller data tries to represent the change of value in a typical home. The NAR data is therefore quite sensitive to the mix of homes that sell. Housing prices could stay the same, but if the mix of homes sold shifted to the low end, the median home price would decline. There’s currently a flurry of activity in the low end, so this is contributing to the decline you see in this graph. Note that there is still also a year-over-year decline in prices (it’s the NSA month-to-month Case-Shiller data that showed improvement).
If you don’t accept that explanation, PANIC!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/hgkKH72oDr27e5nk78ZKK7lpo1_400.gif)
CHART OF THE DAY: Home Prices Collapsing Even Faster
The Case-Shiller has been signalling[sic] an improvement in the second derivative of housing prices for a few months, and in the latest report it even showed a sequential increase. But check out the NAR’s numbers for all of Q2. The year-over-year drop in the median sales price of single family homes showed its worst decline ever. They didn’t even have a second derivative gain improvement.
Though we appreciate a good Chart o’ Doom, we do feel the need to point out certain tricks used to arrive at Doom. In this case, the NAR uses median home prices, whereas the Case-Shiller data tries to represent the change of value in a typical home. The NAR data is therefore quite sensitive to the mix of homes that sell. Housing prices could stay the same, but if the mix of homes sold shifted to the low end, the median home price would decline. There’s currently a flurry of activity in the low end, so this is contributing to the decline you see in this graph. Note that there is still also a year-over-year decline in prices (it’s the NSA month-to-month Case-Shiller data that showed improvement).
If you don’t accept that explanation, PANIC!
