Jason Bernabei, TriCastle Realty: "FHFA's HPI looks Good, but Not Enough Information"

Jason Bernabei, TriCastle Realty

DEL MAR, October 1 2012:  Goooood Monday morning Sannnnn Diego!!!!! Some interesting news coming out of the Federal Home Finance Agency, which released another Home Price Index this past week.

The Federal Home Finance Agency’s(FHFA) Home Price Index (HPI) revealed that home values rose 0.2% on a seasonally-adjusted basis during the month of June 2012, with HPI movement clocking in at +3.7% on an annual basis. This is good news nationally for sellers, and suggests that the window may be primed for buyers, with the worst of the Great Equity Fall-out of the 21^st Century perhaps behind us. In fact, home values have not dropped month-to-month since January, and so almost a half year of values trending in an upward direction is grrrreat news! Right? Well, on the surface, yes. Underneath? I'm not so sure.

The HPI, though a leading mechanism by which “experts” gage the market, is not altogether an accurate portrayal of all home sales, and therefore not to be taken as gospel.  The HPI is published by the FHFA which gets home price data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Home price data from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), from local credit unions, and from all-cash sales, for example, are not part of the HPI’s considerations. 6 years ago FHA insured as little as 4 percent of the housing market at the time, yet juxtapose that ratio with today’s number, which has FHA-insured mortgage loans estimated at more than 20% of new home purchases(and growing). Also, in August, 2012 alone, more than 1 in 4 home sales were made as all-cash, no mortgage transactions. 

Further still, home sales of condominiums, townhomes, multi-unit homes and planned unit developments (PUD) are also not used in the calculation of the HPI. When you consider that a whopping none of these aforementioned home sales were included in the HPI, you begin to realize that there is, or ought be, a very large asterisk next to this Index when it is published. (For a past column in which I pontificate on just how exactly numbers can and all too often do indeed lie, click here).

Sooooo, the bottomline is that it is important who you chose to work with in your Housing pursuits, that you put to work an agent who is seasoned and knows what they are doing in the way of data analysis, correct interpretation of comps, an agent that will deliver for you. So without further adieu, allow me some shameless promotion on this Monday morning. You can contact me, Jason Bernabei, CEO of TriCastle Realty to shoot the breeze on all things Housing in San Diego and beyond. Let's get started on meeting your real estate and mortgage goals today!

Jay’s Outlook: murky

Jason Bernabei, TriCastle