Good housing news but
... let's not forget seasonal adjustments.
As I pointed out in a recent post, Seasonal trends in Charleston real estate, home sales are stronger and prices are higher during this time of year. So while I certainly am a glass half full, not half empty kind of guy and am long term positive on the Charleston real estate market and the economy, the mainstream media is certainly getting pretty excited about recent news in housing.
Take yesterday's Case - Shiller report which turned up for the first time in forever. The report that was covered by the media was not the seasonally adjusted index and Calculated Risk expressed his concern.
"The reason I bring this up is the Case-Shiller report today really bothered me. To be more accurate, the reporting on the Case-Shiller report bothers me. As I mentioned earlier today, there is a strong seasonal component to house prices, and although the seasonally adjusted Case-Shiller index was down (Case-Shiller was reported as up by the media) - I don't think the seasonal factor accurately captures the recent swings in the NSA data".
A couple of media reports: The NY Times reported the good news on home prices and our own Charleston Post and Courier had a front page story on new home sales soaring.
Of course, that's good because the media was so negative for so long that many Americans just got depressed from the negativity overload. I'm just urging a little caution before the dancing in the streets begins.
So take a look at two different ways you can look at the Charleston real estate market housing data. While there is certainly improvement from the previous month (and this June showed much better results than last year), there are still declines from last year to this year.
But the declines are narrowing ... and that's good news! 