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 21st
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 seasone
d 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!
d 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
