San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

"If there are a lot more homes sold on the low end and fewer on the high end, the median price is bound to drop dramatically," NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said. "In normal times, a median price would reflect typical homeowner equity changes, but these are not normal times. The jumbo (mortgage) market is frozen and the buying activity is more concentrated in lower-value homes."

Funny, they were not complaining about this last year at this time when lower end home sales were in the dumps but higher end home sales were skewing the median higher.

And what, 50% appreciation a year is considered "normal times"?

"As reported Tuesday, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index's 12.7% decline in February was the largest drop since its creation in 2001. Despite that index's limited seven-year history, the Associated Press reported that home prices "plunged by a record" percentage and "at their fastest rate ever.""

Okay Yun, why don't you look at the Median Resale price then? Oh, because that's even worse.

This is propaganda at it's worst, insulting at best, and all around simply pathetic.

"This is propaganda at it's worst, insulting at best, and all around simply pathetic."

Well said.

SD Realtor

Agree with all the comments X2.

The only valid criticisms I saw there was the coverage area.

Clearly if cities are worst hit by the bubble and pop the CS will exaggerate the national picture.

By the way , CS might be understating the fall in some places for, correct me if I am wrong, CS does not cover new build in the pairs. Hence the distressed sales of homes which were bought new would not be included. Rich or anyone, is that correct ?

CS never said it did anything other than cover those metro areas, which is certainly a significant sample. If SOME of those areas are harder hit, then CS is accurately measuring that. So what's the problem? I like how the author complains that CS tracks houses bought/sold in the last few years. Gee, the market tanked in the last few years. Can't have any of that data!

Oh, so now NAR is talking about data distribution between datasets.

C-S uses a 3-tier approach involving matched pairs. I've seen nothing from NAR that even comes near that in terms of efficacy. NAR generally relies on the blunt-spoon median comparing years against each other as if they all had the same composition. Yun has a lot of nerve criticizing Shiller.

Here is calculated risk's take.

"Flawed House Price Indices, Flawed Reporting"

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/...