Home Prices Rise a Week Before Election

• October 30th 2012

by UrbanTurf Staff

The stock market may be closed today, but Hurricane Sandy did not prevent Case-Shiller from releasing its monthly report on home prices.

On Tuesday morning, Case-Shiller reported that home prices increased by 2 percent between August 2011 and August 2012 in their 20-city index. In DC, prices rose on both a monthly (1.1%) and annual (4.3%) basis. Phoenix led the way in terms of price increases with prices jumping 18.8 percent year-over-year.

“The year-over-year gain is better than it sounds,” said Jed Kolko, Trulia’s Chief Economist. “The Case-Shiller headline numbers – the 20-city composite – has been understating year-over-year national price growth. The most recent national price report, published in late August, showed a year-over-year increase of 1.2 percent nationally, versus 0.5 percent in the 20-city composite and 0.1 percent in the 10-city composite.”

Between July and August, home prices in DC increased slightly in the middle tier (homes between $293,756 and $457,827) and the high tier (above $457,827), but showed the most notable gains in the the low tier (under $293,756).

When considering the Case-Shiller findings, recall that the index is based on closed sales and home price data from several months ago (evidenced by the fact that this month’s report is about sales and price data from August). As such, the reported statistics are a better gauge of consumer sentiment, rather than what is going on in the market right now. A better indicator of where area prices stand currently is the September report from RealEstate Business Intelligence. Another thing that is important to note is that the main index only covers single-family home prices, so co-op and condo prices are not included in the analysis that is widely reported. Chicago and New York City are two of the cities where Case-Shiller provides a separate index for condo prices, but DC does not have a similar index.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly when considering the conclusions of the index, the region covered by Case-Shiller can only very loosely be described as the “DC area”. According to the site, the following cities are included: DC, Calvert MD, Charles MD, Frederick MD, Montgomery MD, Prince Georges MD, Alexandria City VA, Arlington VA, Clarke VA, Fairfax VA, Fairfax City VA, Falls Church City VA, Fauquier VA, Fredericksburg City VA, Loudoun VA, Manassas City VA, Manassas Park City VA, Prince William VA, Spotsylvania VA, Stafford VA, Warren VA, Jefferson WV.

Home in thumbnail photo for sale at 3100 P Street NW.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/home_prices_rise_a_week_before_election/6227.