Case-Shiller Housing Index: Apr'09 City Trends

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Here is an update of my individual city trends tracked by the Case Shiller index:

If you look on the far right, you will see some of the cities' trends turning up the last couple of months. But if you look at last year this time, you will see how this is really just the seasonal effect kicking in this time of year. The cities that rose last month are: San Fransisco, Denver, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, and Seattle.

In a previous post, I looked deeper at the city trends and noted that there clearly were some leading and lagging markets. One sign I am looking for to get some insight to when the housing market as a whole is bottoming is to look for a few individual cities that show evidence of bottoming first. The first local market may bottom 6-9 months early and be a good sign. So far there are none that have shown any real evidence of bottoming yet and if you caught my updated ARIMA model for the 10-city composite, you will see that my forecast model still shows the housing market moving quite a bit more down from here into next year.

I will try to keep an eye on the city trends and let you know.
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