S&P Dow Jones Indices today released the latest results for the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices. What is Case-Shiller? It is the leading measure of U.S. home prices. Data released today for October 2016 shows that home prices continued their rise across the country over the last 12 months.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 5.6% annual gain in October, up from 5.4% last month. The 10-City Composite posted a 4.3% annual increase, up from 4.2% the previous month. The 20-City Composite reported a year-over-year gain of 5.1%, up from 5.0% in September.
Seattle, Portland, and Denver reported the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities over each of the last nine months. In October, Seattle led the way with a 10.7% year-over-year price increase, followed by Portland with 10.3%, and Denver with an 8.3% increase. 10 cities reported greater price increases in the year ending October 2016 versus the year ending September 2016.
What is Case-Shiller?
Two economists Karl Case and Robert Shiller, started keeping track of home resale prices and calculated the home price index back to 1890. That index is normalized to have 1890 start with a value of 100. If, for example, you bought your house in 1995 at $155,000 and sold it today for $475,000, it would be considered a home resale and figure into the index. Calculating these home resale prices over time would give you a feel for the direction of home prices.
Some might read the latest information from CoreLogic Case-Shiller and see another collapse in home prices coming and run straight to a real estate investor screaming, “I need to sell now. Can you help?” Others might look at the latest news and just smile, thinking prices always weaken in the fall. We do notice that despite all the money the Federal Reserve has shoveled into the economy and low interest rates for over five years, housing has not regained the peaks set in 2006-2007.
It is interesting that Schiller argued that contrary to popular thinking, there is not a continuous uptrend in home prices. He argued that “…since homes are relatively infrequent purchases, people tend to remember the purchase price of a home from long ago and are surprised at the difference between then and now. However, most of the difference in the prices can be explained by inflation.”
If you have been holding off selling for prices to move higher, maybe now’s the time.
We buy “as is” houses. You don’t need an inspector to go through your house, telling you what items to fix before you can sell. You don’t have to reduce your sale price by the cost of the repairs pointed out by the inspector. There are no realtor commissions of 5 to 6% to pay out of your proceeds. In fact, there are no fees whatsoever. There are no open houses to live through and no fears that something goes wrong when it’s time to close and you lose the buyer.
When we say you can sell your house now, we are usually talking 30 to 45 days, though in some cases we have closed in a week. That means you could be out before winter officially starts, basking in some warm tropical sunshine.
How does it work? We know your neighborhood and the house prices. We do a walk-through of your house, note any deficiencies, and figure out what it will cost to fix those items and what price we could sell the refurbished house. We calculate the profit we need on our investment and offer you a price. We will explain how we arrived at our offer to you and answer any questions you might have. Then it’s up to you to accept our offer or go the traditional selling route. One call, no obligation.
Isn’t that what you want?
