Charting the housing slide

A quickie: A lot of us on this blog have spent a fair amount of time bickering over which housing statistics best capture market reality. It strikes me that they're all starting to capture the same reality:

According to Housing Tracker, median listing prices in greater L.A. have declined 14.6% from year-ago levels and 18.9% from their peak.

According to DataQuick, median sales prices in Los Angeles have declined 11.9% from year-ago levels and 16.7% from their peak.

According to the Case-Shiller home price index, home prices in Los Angeles dropped 13.7% over the past year.

Not a whole lot of difference.

Your thoughts? Comments? Email story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com
Photo Credit: AP

Comments

[MBWatcher]

This is a different angle, but much the same conclusion. The recent closed sales in Manhattan Beach are all coming in at 10%+ below the start prices – it's a near-uniform trend, with lots of them at 15% or more below.

Story at MBC:
http://tinyurl.com/39prat

[JohnnyB]

The house of cards in Cali (and beyond) is tumbling... all numbers pointing down... millions hurting... but at least Waxman is really focused on solutions for his constituents.

He's pursuing Roger Clemens with verve and vigor!

"Congress cannot perform its oversight function..."
"Perjury and false statements before Congress..."

Oversight of what... a silly side show meant as a distraction from the very real crumbling housing market and broader economy?

Our tax dollars hard at work...

WHAT ABOUT OVERSIGHT AND REFORM THAT MATTERS?!

[Kobe]

"The recent closed sales in Manhattan Beach are all coming in at 10%+ below the start prices – it's a near-uniform trend, with lots of them at 15% or more below. "

Why don't the people in MB just slash their overpriced seaside shacks by 50% so we can get this whole mess behind us and get back to a normal market? If someone is not buying at 2002 levels they are going to get burned.

[CD]

I am now waiting for 1982 prices. Actually forget that, I want the government to pay me to buy a house. I will take the highest offer of course. I am ready to buy, Yo Paulson make me an offer !!!

[IM]

Looking at numbers in a vacuum is a mistake. In economics, nominal interest rates don't capture anything until you measure them relative to inflation for what is called the "real interest rate".

I think it is most relevant to measure housing prices as a ratio to income (or better yet wealth). It indicates when prices are "affordable" and when they are not. Housing prices, in my opinion, are still far too high relative to income/wealth levels. I think that's what we are seeing: a gradual (or slow) move back to equilibrium now that incomes are not growing, living expenses are increasing (gas, food, etc.) and that will continue until housing costs are an appropriate fraction of income and living expenses.

We have a ways to go.

[jb]

I agree with JohnnyB - what are politicians doing pursuing baseball? Is this what we are paying them for? whoever is spearheading this should be removed from office.

On the other hand, if they focused on housing, they would certainly come up with a bailout plan which is stupid (they should focus on legislation that aids future borrowers and also focus on fraud that occured during the bubble)

[Dr. JwB]

jb, these are the same politicians who found the time to rename french fries to "freedom fries". Of course fries are actually from Belgium, but politicians are too stupid to know that.

[Geek Seek]

I was thinking about the whole baseball thing, trying to figure out why it had become such a major issue. Could be that since baseball is such a large part of our national identity, fairness in the game is incredibly important to us.

They eyes of millions of kids and young adults are on these heros. If we don't stress the importance of fairness in the game, we send a strong message out that cheating is ok. Enrons, Ameriquests, real estate fraud, health care fraud, ensues.

Today there was a big article in LAT about cheating at Harvard-Westlake school. (6 kids expelled for cheating is frontpage news?). I think this is completely justified. A friend just told me about another kid we knew back in the 80's who went to this school. He was caught cheating on an exam, but then nothing at all happened as his parents were big contributors. It's great to see how seriously the current administration regards cheating. We need to re-educate. I've seen some polls where greater than 60% of respondents think that cheating is ok.

I wonder how many folks out there think that we should actively discourage cheating so that when *they* cheat, they have a less than even playing field in their favor.

[bottom line]

Aye, Dr. JwB, then you'ld be talking about that great American Bob Ney.

From 2001 to 2006, Ney was Chairman of the House Administration Committee. As chair of that committee, he oversaw operations in the Capitol complex and was sometimes known as the "Mayor of Capitol Hill". Ney also gained notoriety when he mandated, as Chairman of the House Administration Committee, that "french fries" be renamed "freedom fries" on House of Representatives food service menus, to indicate displeasure with France's lack of support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Before his own guilty plea, Ney was identified in the guilty pleas of Jack Abramoff, former Tom DeLay deputy chief of staff Tony Rudy, former DeLay press secretary Michael Scanlon and former Ney chief of staff Neil Volz for receiving lavish gifts in exchange for political favors.
This from wiki, Bob is now in the greybar Fed. pen.

Well now, maybe those Frogs thought that Ritter & ElBaradi just might have been doing some VERY significant work. Hmmm, no Saddam connection to 9/11, AND no reconstituted nuke-u-lar program, heck, no WMD biological & chemical weapons programs, along with Curveball's attendant Winnebago's of Death!! That was always my favorite.

A little oversight can go a long way, and our used to be great country had a system of checks & balances.

O but for that great American, Dwight David Eisenhower, how we could still be great had we heeded his immortal words at the close of his 2nd term. You remember, "Beware the military-industrial complex".

No oversight for the first six years of Cheney's presidency, and look where we are.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was 100% in favor of going into Afghanistan, even with the history of foreign powers entering their land. Well look what happened! We had an initial tremendous success. Did/could we build on that? A resounding NO, with troops & assets switched to Iraq. Now, Afghanistan has reverted to a narco-state, a stalemate at the very best, costing around 2 billion a month, while we are pinned down referreeing a civil war in Iraq to the tune of 10 billion a month. I'll take some oversight, thanks. Maybe a little sunshine on all three branches of our governent.

[Dr. JwB]

oh, and I find the slope curve to that C-S data even more revealing about what has happened over the past few years.

[adoptivefather]

"..........They eyes of millions of kids and young adults are on these heros. If we don't stress the importance of fairness in the game, we send a strong message out that cheating is ok. Enrons, Ameriquests, real estate fraud, health care fraud, ensues."

Geek - anybody playing baseball or any other sport isn't a hero. He's an entertainer - nothing more nothing less.

Raising them to 'hero' status is an insult to the real heros dying/injured for their country every day and to keep those baseball stadiums open.

[Keith]

Re: Baseball -

The games importance? Important to what?. Heroes? Nah, fabulously wealthy entertainers is more like it. So what about steroids, might as well be PO'd at all the fake racks in Hollywood.

Waxman's hearings are just plain stupid with all the other problems going on in housing, the economy.