Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Q2 OFHEO Home Price Index

From OFHEO:

HOUSE PRICE APPRECIATION SLOWS (PDF)

U.S. home prices continued to rise in the second quarter of this year but the rate of increase fell sharply. Home prices were 10.06 percent higher in the second quarter of 2006 than they were one year earlier. Appreciation for the most recent quarter was 1.17 percent, or an annualized rate of 4.68 percent. The quarterly rate reflects a sharp decline of more than one percentage point from the previous quarter and is the lowest rate of appreciation since the fourth quarter of 1999. The decline in the quarterly rate over the past year is the sharpest since the beginning of OFHEO’s House Price Index (HPI) in 1975. The figures were released today by OFHEO Director James B. Lockhart, as part of the HPI, a quarterly report analyzing housing price appreciation trends.

“These data are a strong indication that the housing market is cooling in a very significant way,” said Lockhart. “Indeed, the deceleration appears in almost every region of the country.”


From Marketwatch:

U.S. 2Q OFHEO home price index up 4.7% annualized

U.S. home prices were appreciating at a 4.7% annual rate in the second quarter, the slowest gains since 1999, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said Tuesday. In the past year, home prices are up 10.1%. The purchase-only index is up 8.3% in the past year. The deceleration in OHFHEO's home price index is the fastest in the three-decade history of the index. "These data are a strong indication that the housing market is cooling in a very significant way," said James Lockhart, OFHEO director. In the first quarter, home prices had risen at an 8.8% annualized rate, with prices up 12.8% year-over-year.

4 Comments:

Blogger grim said...

From Marketwatch:

House prices growing more slowly

"These data are a strong indication that the housing market is cooling in a very significant way," said James Lockhart, OFHEO director.

"Indeed, the deceleration appears in almost every region of the country."
It's the fastest deceleration in the index in its three-decade history, OFHEO said.

Home prices are up 10.6% in the past year, OFHEO said, compared with a 12.8% gain in the first quarter. The OFHEO index tracks mortgages written on the same homes over time, making it the most reliable index of home values.

A separate index based only on homes that changed ownership showed home prices rose 8.3% in the past year.
In the past year, Arizona showed the largest price gains, up 24%. But in the second quarter, prices slowed to an 11.8% annual rate. Florida home prices were up 21.3% in the past year, but were rising at a 10% pace in the second quarter.

By contrast, home prices in Michigan rose just 1% in the past year and fell at an annual rate of 3.6% in the second quarter.

The hottest markets in the second quarter were in the Rockies: New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Washington and Montana.

Prices fell in the second quarter in four states: Michigan, Massachusetts, Ohio and Indiana.
Prices in Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia, Nevada, New Jersey, the District of Columbia, and California cooled to less than 0% annualized growth in the second quarter.

9/05/2006 09:37:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Home Prices Show Sharp Slowdown in 2Q
Tuesday September 5, 11:13 am ET
Home Prices Across the Country Show Sharp Slowdown in 2nd Quarter, Report Shows


WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. home prices continued to rise in the second quarter but showed the biggest slowdown in three decades, federal regulators reported Tuesday.
The figures released by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the agency that oversees the big mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, provided the latest indication that the housing market is cooling substantially.

Average home prices rose 1.17 percent in the April-June period, compared with 3.65 percent in the second quarter of 2005 -- the biggest decline in price growth since OFHEO started keeping track of home prices in 1975, the new report showed.

The agency cited higher interest rates and rising inventories of homes for sale as possible factors in the slowdown in price growth.

9/05/2006 10:50:00 AM  
Blogger grim said...

From CNN/Money:

Sharp home price pullback

ew evidence of a housing market slowdown emerged Tuesday - growth in the price of a single family home was just 1.17 percent in the second quarter, a decline of more than one percentage point from the prior quarter when prices grew 2.20 percent.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which released the report, said it was the slowest quarterly increase since the fourth quarter of 1999 and was the sharpest quarter-to-quarter pullback since OFHEO began the index in 1975.
...
Even so, according to Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel, an appraiser in New York, the slowdown may be even more pronounced than the numbers are showing.

"The index may not reflect what's really happening out there," he said.

Miller thinks that many sellers are holding out for unrealistically high asking prices, and the buyers actually purchasing homes are only the ones willing to pay those higher prices. "That's why there's been such a drop-off in volume," says Miller.

In a normal market those sellers would more readily accept lower bids but, conditioned to oversized price increases, they are reluctant to abandon their asking prices.

To close deals with the on-the-fence or reluctant buyers, sellers will have to drop their prices and only then will the index reflect the actual market. The effect could snowball if sellers get a bit panicky and try to unload their properties quickly, before prices erode further.

9/05/2006 10:54:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Grim,
property 532 HUNTER AVE ,SCOTCH PLAINS NJ, supposedly owned by NJ affordable homes. I looked on the web and it has some other person as the owner. MAY be NJAH is holding mortgage. I felt it is too risky to bid on these properties. Do you know any Lender which guarantees that they finance these purchases.

http://tax1.co.monmouth.nj.us/cgi-bin/m4sr.cgi?&srch_type=1&ms_user=monm&district=2016211

Thanks,
rameshrrs

9/05/2006 04:57:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home