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Home price upswing: Seasonal or not?

Posted on September 29, 2009 at 2:25 pm

Well, that depends on who’s dissecting the new Case-Shiller numbers: Hedge fund manager Tom Brown says the housing bears need a new excuse.

…[S]equential monthly improvement in the index usually deteriorates seasonally in July. This month, though, the change in the rate of change rose by 18 bps. So instead of a seasonally monthly slowing, we’re seeing month-on-month acceleration.

CNBC’s Diana Olick says the numbers are a lot closer to reality when they’re seasonally adjusted.

whether we’re in a housing boom or bust, home prices always rise in the spring/summer months, due to the type of buyer largely in the market. Families, i.e. move-up home buyers, looking to close and move over the summer so as not to disrupt school, dominate the market in the spring and summer.

They are, for the most part, buying larger, more expensive homes, and they therefore skew the median home price in their market higher. In the fall and winter, you tend to see more first-time buyers as well as more single buyers who want smaller, lower-priced homes.

Stephen Stanley of RBS says focusing on seasonality doesn’t matter too much; the improvements are simply a case of the market coming off the absolute bottom of early this year.

…[I]n retrospect, a rebound of some magnitude was likely as demand recovered from non-existent to merely weak.

Comments

2 Responses to “Home price upswing: Seasonal or not?”

  1. pandabear writes
    September 30th, 2009 7:34 am

    2/3 or the sub prime adjustable rate mortgages
    will reset in the next 1 to 2 years.

    If most of the housing problems have been
    caused by the first 1/3 resetting, what do
    you think is about to happen next ?

    These guys get paid for what ?
    Their thinking ?
    What a joke !

  2. SouthernIndie writes
    September 30th, 2009 7:14 pm

    More bankrupties are still in the pipeline. There
    are short sales nationwide that are a scandal to
    the bank industry which will not make a decision
    on how to handle. At some point these short are
    going to have to sell at reduced prices or
    go through the foreclosure process that will
    hurt housing prices even further. At one time
    Bankers were considered among the most trust
    worthy of Americans. Those are now dead or retired.
    Today’s group are a greedy group feeding on a
    money changer mentality of the Title-loaners.

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