The Case-Shiller Index metro areas are: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa and Washington, DC.
Are home prices the same all over America. Of course not. That would violate that age-old real estate axiom: Location, Location, Location. Indeed, home price vary greatly by location on both a local and national basis.
But it' not just the actual price level that varies, it's also the rate of appreciation through which different locales achieve that price variety. Those appreciation levels have fluctuated wildly across the country.
Nothing makes that more clear than looking closely at the difference in home appreciation experienced over the last decade in the twenty major metropolitan areas measured by the Case-Shiller Index.
(The Index is published monthly by Standard and Poors and the Wall Street Journal. The January, 2010 numbers were published only recently. The Index is the premier measure of changes in home value. Prices from metro to metro are compared indexing the actual dollar prices, with January, 2000 prices being set to zero.)
on Home Values
In the 20 Metropolitan Areas of the
Home values increased most over the decade in Washington, DC and New York, our political and financial capitals, where values increased by 76% and 74% , respectively. No wonder policy makers in both power centers seem so insulated from the real world. They actually are living in Oz.
Detroit is at the opposite end of the chart...having fallen, as it were, clear off the chart ...the year 2000 baseline - with a loss in value of nearly 30%.
Talk about night and day. The difference is astonishing.
But even more astounding is how our twenty cities and their home prices got to the decade end.
at the Height of the Boom
In the 20 Metropolitan Areas of the
While none or the 20 cities finished the decade having recorded a doubling of home prices, nearly half did see a doubling at the height of the housing boom.
Miami and Los Angeles saw prices nearly triple, with appreciation of 181% and 174% over year-2000 values. Washington and San Diego saw prices ascend to 2 1/2 times the year-2000 level.
Tampa, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco,and New York did see a doubling of prices.
Seattle, Portand, Boston and Minneapolis all came close. Even Chicago saw prices top out at a 2/3 increase.
But as you can see from the two charts below, the highs of mid-decade seem wildly disconnected from the reality of January, 2010. Some of the highs have truly been brought low. But not all of those have hit the same rocky bottom.
to the Decade End
In the 20 Metropolitan Areas of the
Here is the same data, re-sorted:
to the Decade Highs
In the 20 Metropolitan Areas of the
What will the next decade bring? Very likely: More of the same mysterious variation in home prices. But it seems clear that the highs will come anywhere near the "irrational exuberance" in housing we experienced in the decade just past.
***********************
Jim Hale
Principal Broker / Owner
Graduate, REALTOR Institute e-PRO
Member, Million Dollar Club of Lane County
Member, Real Estate Brokers Million Dollar Club
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