March 2019 CoreLogic Home Prices Up 3.7% Year-Over-Year

CoreLogic's Home Price Index (HPI) shows that home prices in the USA are up 3.7 % year-over-year (reported up 1.0 % month-over-month). CoreLogic HPI is used in the Federal Reserves' Flow of Funds to calculate the values of residential real estate. The quote of the day was in this data release:

.... The U.S. housing market continues to cool, primarily due to some of our priciest markets moving into frigid waters ....

Analyst Opinion of CoreLogic's HPI

Last month the stated year-over-year increase was published 4.0 % - which makes this month lower year-over-.year. Note that CoreLogic forecasts:

Looking ahead, after some initial moderation in early 2019, the CoreLogic HPI Forecast indicates home prices will begin to pick up and increase by 4.8% on a year-over-year basis from March 2019 to March 2020. On a month-over-month basis, home prices are expected to decrease by 0.3% from March 2019 to April 2019. The CoreLogic HPI Forecast is a projection of home prices calculated using the CoreLogic HPI and other economic variables. Values are derived from state-level forecasts by weighting indices according to the number of owner-occupied households for each state.

CoreLogic is forecasting a slower rate of home price increases.According to CoreLogic:

.... revisions with public records data are standard, and to ensure accuracy, CoreLogic incorporates the newly released public data to provide updated results.

Dr. Ralph McLaughlin, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic stated:

The U.S. housing market continues to cool, primarily due to some of our priciest markets moving into frigid waters. But the broader market looks more temperate as supply and demand come into balance. With mortgage rates flat and inventory picking up, we expect more buyers to take advantage of easing housing market headwinds.

Frank Martell, president, and CEO of CoreLogic stated:

The cost of either buying or renting in expensive markets puts a significant strain on most consumers. Nearly half of survey respondents - 44% of renters - cited the cost to rent in high-priced housing markets as the number one barrier to entry into homeownership. This is potentially forcing renters to wait longer to have the necessary down payment in these communities.

Caveats Relating to Home Price Indices

There is no such thing as an "accurate" home price index. CoreLogic HPI is a repeat sales type index which should not be skewed by changes in the mix of home sales. For more information, please read: http://www.philadelphiafed.org/research-and-data/publications/research-rap/2014/house-price-indexes.pdf

From CoreLogic:

The CoreLogic HPI™ is built on industry-leading public record, servicing and securities real-estate databases and incorporates more than 40 years of repeat-sales transactions for analyzing home price trends. Generally released on the first Tuesday of each month with an average five-week lag, the CoreLogic HPI is designed to provide an early indication of home price trends by market segment and for the "Single-Family Combined" tier representing the most comprehensive set of properties, including all sales for single-family attached and single-family detached properties. The indexes are fully revised with each release and employ techniques to signal turning points sooner. The CoreLogic HPI provides measures for multiple market segments, referred to as tiers, based on property type, price, time between sales, loan type (conforming vs. non-conforming) and distressed sales. Broad national coverage is available from the national level down to ZIP Code, including non-disclosure states.

CoreLogic HPI Forecasts™ are based on a two-stage, error-correction econometric model that combines the equilibrium home price—as a function of real disposable income per capita—with short-run fluctuations caused by market momentum, mean-reversion, and exogenous economic shocks like changes in the unemployment rate. With a 30-year forecast horizon, CoreLogic HPI Forecasts project CoreLogic HPI levels for two tiers—"Single-Family Combined" (both attached and detached) and "Single-Family Combined Excluding Distressed Sales." As a companion to the CoreLogic HPI Forecasts, Stress-Testing Scenarios align with Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) national scenarios to project five years of home prices under baseline, adverse and severely adverse scenarios at state, CBSA and ZIP Code levels. The forecast accuracy represents a 95-percent statistical confidence interval with a +/- 2.0 percent margin of error for the index.

Source: CoreLogic