I know I said my next piece would discuss the circumstances in which it makes sense to buy a house. I need to stop promising that I’ll discuss something in the “next” blog entry, because often a quicker and newsier topic intervenes.
In this case that would be the latest release of the Case-Shiller index, which takes place on the last Tuesday of each month. (Yes, I really should have seen this coming).
In any case, the overall index was down .7 percent for the final month of 2010. The high-priced tier was also down .7 percent; the middle tier declined by 1.2 percent. The low-priced tier actually managed a gain for its second month in a row, rising by .5 percent.
Not exactly an earthshattering month for this statistic, but there you have it. Some graphs follow, in increasing order of duration.
Since the early-2009 price trough:
Since the late-2005 price peak:
Since the start of the decade:
And finally, since the start of the tiered Case-Shiller index data series in 1989. This last graph is adjusted for inflation to give a better idea of price pressures over time:
Please contact Rich Toscano at rtoscano@pcasd.com and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/richtoscano.