Case-Shiller U.S. Home Price Indices

The chart above depicts the annual returns of the U.S. National, the 10-City Composite and the 20-City

Composite Home Price Indices. The decline in the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index –

which covers all nine U.S. census divisions – remained in double digits, posting a record 16.6% decline

in the third quarter of 2008 versus the third quarter of 2007. This has increased from the annual declines

of 15.1% and 14.0%, reported for the 2nd and 1st quarters of the year, respectively. The 10-City and 20-

City Composites continue to set new records, with annual declines of 18.6% and 17.4%, respectively.

“The turmoil in the financial markets is placing further downward pressure on a housing market already

weakened by its own fundamentals.” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at 

Standard & Poor’s. “All three aggregate indices and 13 of the 20 metro areas are reporting new recordrates

of decline. Looking at the returns of the U.S. National Index, prices are back to where they were in early 2004. 

As of September 2008, the 10-City Composite is down 23.4% from its peak, the 20-City Composite is down 

21.8% and the National Composite is down 21.0%.”

Phoenix was the weakest market, reporting an annual decline of 31.9%, followed by Las Vegas, down

31.3%, and San Francisco at -29.5%. Miami, Los Angeles, and San Diego did not fair much better with

annual declines of 28.4%, 27.6% and 26.3%, respectively.

Dallas and Charlotte faired the best in September in terms of relative year-over-year returns. While also

in negative territory, their declines remained in single digits of -2.7% and -3.5%, respectively. However,

both are at rates of decline lower than those reported in August’s numbers. In addition, Charlotte also

reported its largest monthly decline on record, down 1.3%. Monthly returns were negative across the

board. Cleveland was the one market that showed any improvement in its year-over-year returns

reporting -6.4% compared to the -6.6% reported for August.

The table below summarizes the results for September 2008.

 

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are published on the last Tuesday of each month at 9:00 am

ET. They are constructed to accurately track the price path of typical single-family homes located in each

metropolitan area provided. Each index combines matched price pairs for thousands of individual houses

from the available universe of arms-length sales data. The S&P/Case-Shiller National U.S. Home Price

Index tracks the value of single-family housing within the United States. The index is a composite of

single-family home price indices for the nine U.S. Census divisions and is calculated quarterly. The

S&P/Case-Shiller Composite of 10 Home Price Index is a value-weighted average of the 10 original

metro area indices. The S&P/Case-Shiller Composite of 20 Home Price Index is a value-weighted

average of the 20 metro area indices. The indices have a base value of 100 in January 2000; thus, 

forexample, a current index value of 150 translates to a 50% appreciation rate since January 2000 for a

typical home located within the subject market.

Source: S&P and Fiserv