As a real estate agent I often come in contact with people who ask me, How is the market? followed by a statement, I just saw the latest report saying…. Although some people do get the idea behind what the numbers show, often times they have either taken that information to be a prediction or have trouble understanding what the numbers really mean. What they really want to know most of the time is; is it the right time to buy? should I sell my home now or wait a bit? Is it the right market to invest? So I thought I share with all of you a glimpse as to how and why you should interpret this indicators with care, specially because what happens to Real Estate in New York City is very different than what happens to Real Estate in Carmel Valley Real Estate or La Jolla Real Estate or Rancho Santa Fe Real Estate.
Case Schilling reported their numbers for the September behavior of the Market and it is calling it a “weak report” in fact they believe it is even weaker than last months report. However it is important to understand that they believe that this results are believed to be highly influenced by the end of the government’s incentive programs. I believe this numbers were to be expected, many of the people who were ready to buy, did so in time to take advantage of all the government credits and incentives, pushing the number higher for several months. Another fact that might have influenced the numbers is the fact that the interest rates have been going down and people keep hearing of a new wave of foreclosures, and a possible second dip in home prices and because they have no time concerns after the credits expired, many people have gone back to sitting on the fences and waiting to have a clearer picture of how the market will be trending.
Another important fact to take into consideration is that Case Schilling is reporting what has happened in the past few months, since this report came out, there has been some better than expected numbers from different indicators, Wall Street broke to pre crash levels, unemployment has started to shift, the government has said it will be pumping 600 million to re-invest , consumer confidence is higher than expected and so are the results of gains of many of the large corporations.
I would like to point out that if you look at the graph, you can see that the 20 city index shows that the market is up above 2003 price levels. ” From their peak in June/July of 2006 through the trough in April 2009, the 10-City Composite is down 33.5% and the 20-City Composite is down 32.6%. Through September, they have recovered by +7.2%and +5.9%, respectively. The peak-to-date figures through September 2010 are -28.7% and -28.6%,respectively.”
Lastly, Case Schilling is a snapshot of the country, taken from 10 or 20 cities, it is important to understand that each market behaves differently. For example, if you look at the local San Diego market, you see that it actually is showing a 5.0% GAIN from the 2009 levels, not a loss by any means and if you take it a step further you can see that even within San Diego, you have to look at each area separately, some have had bigger gains, some have shown a steadier path through the whole crisis and some have shown some losses in the last months. This is why it is very important to know what you are looking at and be careful when you interpret any charts or information to make decisions based on them. Be sure to always ask an expert.
If you would like to see more detailed information you can go to: http://www.standardandpoors.com/servlet/BlobServer?blobheadername3=MDT-Type&blobcol=urldocumentfile&blobtable=SPComSecureDocument&blobheadervalue2=inline%3B+filename%3Ddownload.pdf&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobheadername1=content-type&blobwhere=1245262947491&blobheadervalue3=abinary%3B+charset%3DUTF-8&blobnocache=true
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