Tuesday, September 30, 2008

We're Nowhere Near A Bottom in Housing

From Bloomberg

House prices in 20 U.S. cities declined in July at the fastest pace on record, signaling the worst housing recession in a generation had yet to trough even before this month's credit crisis.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 16.3 percent from a year earlier, more than forecast, after a 15.9 percent decline in June. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007, and year-over-year records began in 2001.


Note the year over year rate accelerated. While I don't expect that situation to continue, it's obvious the rate of decline is not letting up.

Over the last few months there were some commentators who noted the rate of decline in individual cities was increasing. Therefore, there were signs of a bottoming. Folks -- my hope is that at the end of this year we'll have some visibility regarding when there might be a bottom. Maybe.