Case Shiller: Chicago Home Prices Barely Eke Out Gains In August

Case Shiller just released their August home price index for Chicago and 19 other metro areas and it continues to show ever smaller home price gains – especially for this time of the year. The national index for single family homes showed a gain of only 0.2% for August while Chicago gained 0.4%. The Case Shiller Chicago condo index showed an even smaller gain of only 0.1%. Case Shiller only tracks condo prices in 5 markets and does not produce a composite index for condos that I am aware of.
The graph below shows the long term trend of home prices in Chicago for both single family homes and condos. Single family home prices are the highest they’ve been since January 2009 while condo prices are the highest they’ve been since December 2009. Both single family homes and condos first hit these levels in June 2003, which is a really long time to go with virtually no price appreciation.
Single family home prices have still fallen a total of 22.0% from the bubble peak and condos have fallen by 18.7%. But the flip side is that single family home prices are up by 27.9% from the bottom and condo prices are up 34.6%.
Tracking performance against that red long term trend line below shows that we are still lagging by 20.6%.
Case Shiller Chicago
With these ever smaller home price increases Chicago’s year over year performance continues to decline from where it was earlier this year. Single family home prices are now up only 2.9% from last year at this time while condo prices are up a similar amount – 3.1%. These are the lowest year over year gains we’ve seen in 20 months for single family home prices and 21 months for condos. The graph below shows just how rapidly these numbers have declined recently.
Case Shiller Chicago Year Over Year
While noting that “the deceleration in home prices continues”, David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, was still optimistic:

Despite softer price data, other housing data perked up. September figures for housing starts, permits and sales of existing homes were all up. New home sales and builders’ confidence were weaker. Continued labor market gains, low interest rates and slower increases in home prices should support further improvements in housing.

As I keep pointing out inventories are still very low and market times really fast so I don’t see prices declining any time soon.
#caseshiller #homeprices #realestate
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