Housing Market Has a Way to Go

NEW YORK (TheStreet) - The widely followed Case-Shiller Home Price Index out this morning showed a decline for November compared to October, but just barely.

The Composite-10 Index, covering 10 of the largest metropolitan housing markets, was $158,490 in November, down from $158,820 in October. The broader Composite-20 showed similar results, with a decline from October of 0.2%, the same as the Composite-10.

Compared to a year ago, prices for the two indexes were down 4.5% (Comp-10) and 5.3% (Comp-20). The year-over-year rates of price decline continue to improve, as shown in the graph provided by S&P Case-Shiller below.

Because the Case-Shiller (C-S) index reports a three-month moving average, the effect of the end of the 2009 first-time home buyers tax credit is muted compared to the data from the NAR (National Association of Realtors).

The November declines in the NAR existing home prices were -1.2% from October and -5.7% year over year. When the NAR data is viewed through the prism of a 3-month moving average, the numbers are even more different from the C-S results. The 3-month moving average changes are -1.4% month to month and -7.2% year over year for the NAR data.

I can only attribute this to the geographic scope of the two surveys: C-S monthly surveys cover only 10- and 20-city markets, whereas NAR is a national survey. The implication is that the improvement trends (declining more slowly) are lagging outside of the 20 major markets.