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Biggest US market slowdown for 30 years - 6 September 2006
U.S. home prices continued to rise in the second quarter of this year but the rate of increase fell sharply, report the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise (OFHEO).
Home prices were 10.06 percent higher in the second quarter of 2006 than they were one year earlier. Appreciation for the most recent quarter was 1.17 percent, or an annualized rate of 4.68 percent.
The quarterly rate reflects a sharp decline of more than one percentage point from the previous quarter and is the lowest rate of appreciation since the fourth quarter of 1999. The decline in the quarterly rate over the past year is the sharpest since the beginning of OFHEO’s House Price Index (HPI) in 1975.
The figures were released yesterday by OFHEO Director James B. Lockhart, as part of the HPI, a quarterly report analyzing housing price appreciation trends. These data are a strong indication that the housing market is cooling in a very significant way, said Lockhart. Indeed, the deceleration appears in almost every region of the country.
OFHEO indicate that possible causes of the decrease in appreciation rates may include higher interest rates, a drop in speculative activity, and rising inventories of homes. The very high appreciation rates we’ve seen in recent years spurred increased construction, said OFHEO Chief Economist Patrick Lawler. That coupled with slower sales has led to higher inventories and these inventories will continue to constrain future appreciation rates, Lawler said.
House prices grew faster over the past year than did prices of non-housing goods and services reflected in the Consumer Price Index. While house prices rose 10.06 percent, prices of other goods and services rose only 4.41 percent. The pace of house price appreciation in the most recent quarter more closely resembles the non-housing inflation rate.
Key findings of the HPI:
- All states show four-quarter appreciation, but five Midwestern (Indiana, Ohio, Michigan) and New England (Maine, Massachusetts) states had small price decreases in the second quarter.
- Price appreciation remains relatively robust in the two states hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina one year ago Louisiana and Mississippi.
- The South Atlantic Census Division including Florida, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland experienced its most significant price deceleration since at least the early 1980s. Its four-quarter appreciation rate fell from 17.43 percent to 13.74 percent.
- New England’s four-quarter appreciation rate fell from 8.71 percent to 5.68 percent. While appreciation rates in Massachusetts were consistently amid the 10 highest between mid-1997 and mid-2003, its four-quarter appreciation rate now ranks 48th among the states and the District of Columbia.
- Despite a nine percentage point decline in its four-quarter appreciation rate, Arizona’s housing market still exhibits the highest appreciation rate among the 50 states. Prices were up roughly 24 percent compared to the second quarter of 2005 but grew only 2.94 percent in the most recent quarter.
- While the 20 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) with the highest appreciation included nine cities in Florida, the representation of other states continues to increase. MSAs in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Washington State have now entered the list of fastest appreciating markets.
- Michigan had the greatest numbers of price decreases among ranked MSAs. Thirteen of Michigan’s 16 ranked metropolitan areas exhibited quarterly price decreases.
One of the more striking elements of the new HPI data is that four-quarter appreciation rates fell sharply in four of the five states that had fastest appreciation in last quarter’s HPI release.
OFHEO’s House Price Index is published on a quarterly basis and tracks average house price changes in repeat sales or refinancings of the same single-family properties. OFHEO’s index is based on analysis of data obtained from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from more than 31 million repeat transactions over the past 31 years.
OFHEO’s HPI report in PDF form and an OFHEO House Price Calculator are available at www.ofheo.gov.
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