Home prices in San Diego bumped up slightly in June compared to May, according to the new Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index released this morning.
This time, even a version of the index designed to take normal seasonal changes into account (remember our issues with these data last month?) shows a 0.7 percent bump up in prices when comparing June to May. The regular, non-adjusted version of the index rose 1.6 percent over the same time.
Prices are still down significantly compared to June 2008. But the amount by which they’re down year-over-year has been shrinking for a few months. (I know, that’s a confusing concept. They’re still falling, but falling by a smaller amount each month.)
The index as a whole fell 16 percent between June 2008 and June 2009 — the smallest year-over-year drop since January 2008.
And from the market peak in November 2005, prices were down 41.2 percent, an improvement from the last two months, when the plunge from the peak had been about 42 percent.
Here’s the breakdown by price:
- Low tier (homes priced under $269,406): down 21.2 percent year-over-year, down 52.6 percent from June 2006 peak.
- Middle tier (homes priced between $269,406 and $406,565): down 13 percent year-over-year, down 40.2 percent from November 2005 peak.
- High tier (homes priced higher than $406,565): down 14.7 percent year-over-year, down 31.2 percent from June 2006 peak.
Comparing May to June in the seasonally adjusted version of the index, the low tier fell 0.04 percent but the other two tiers rose: the middle tier by 0.87 percent and the high tier by 0.18 percent.
National home prices, a composite version of the index, showed the first quarterly improvement in three years. From the firm’s press release:
“For the second month in a row, we’re seeing some positive signs,” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. “As seen in both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted data, as well as the charts, there are hints of an upward turn from a bottom. However, some of the hardest hit cities, especially in the Sun Belt, show continued weakness.”
I’ll have more on these data later today. Anything you want me to be asking as I chat with housing folks today? Leave a comment below. (If you’re not reading this in Survival in San Diego, then go there to make comments.)