Bigger Fall After a Bigger Gain

by Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist, NAR Research

The stream of stories about housing's downturn continue in the media. But I can't stress the reality enough: not all housing markets have suffered to the same extent. We are all well aware of the current weak housing market regions: California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, and the D.C. region. We should also be aware that these areas were also the places where prices increased the most during the housing boom. Current price declines of 5% to 20% are not as frightening for those who bought a home for the long-term.

Long-term Housing Equity
For example, based on NAR price data, a typical homeowner who bought a property in 2000 would be have accumulated $123,000 in Phoenix, $150,100 in Orlando, $242,800 in Riverside-San Bernardino, and $252,000 in the Washington, D.C. metro region. That does not even include any additional equity that homeowner acquired from paying down mortgage debt from his/her normal amortizing monthly payments. The equity position would be less for those homeowners who took out home equity loans and who took cash-out refinances. (I would personally advise against tapping into housing equity unless it is for investment reasons - like paying for tuition or to open a business).

Data from the Federal Reserve further affirms the long-term housing equity accumulation for homeowners even with recent declines in home prices. Homeowners' net housing equity (home value minus mortgage debt) rose from $6.2 trillion to $9.6 trillion from 2000 to 2007.

No Price Decline in Many Parts of the Country
And as I say, in many parts of the country, there has not been a price decline. NAR data indicate that essentially half of the 150 metro markets studied in the U.S. experienced a price increase throughout the past seven years. Data from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) also show that close to 70 percent of the 287 markets the agency tracks had price increases throughout those same seven years. In rural America, the price declines are even more rare.


Because of different price measurements, the gain could also be different depending on how the price statistics are calculated. Only when the homeowner him or herself sells their home - i.e., has a actual price against which to measure - would they know for sure how much equity was accumulated or lost. The Case-Shiller home price index, by contrast, which looks at a very narrow 20 markets, finds most markets experienced price declines in 2007. Interestingly though, if one uses the Case-Shiller national aggregate price index, the housing equity gains are much higher than under other price data. From 2000 to 2007, a typical U.S. homeowner would have accumulated $103,400 according to Case-Shiller rather than the $75,400 equity gain as is implied by the NAR data.

The Case-Shiller price gain appears outsized and not necessarily what most people would be saying. Perhaps, the methodology of the Case-Shiller price index brings volatile swings that distort underlying trends. So the recent decline in the Case-Shiller price measurement may not be due completely to a decline in home prices but rather to a downward adjustment after illusory high price gains it showed during the market boom. These illusory price gains also fooled Wall Street and global capital providers into believing that the underlying housing collateral was worth more than it actually was. Ask Bear Stearns if it would have made a similar bet if it knew that home values were not as high as indicated by Case-Shiller.

Sure, home prices have fallen measurably in some Florida and California markets - as reflected in both Case-Shiller and NAR data. But broadly speaking the decline in the Case-Shiller price measurement may be just a downward adjustment to compensate for unrealistically strong price gains it recorded during the housing market boom.

[Call Ray and the SCV Home Team at 661-287-9164 or post your comments here.]