Probably The Worst Way To Track Home Prices – May 01, 2024

Video Transcript

The data is old and not really relevant but it’s in the headlines. The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index. The measure of changes in home values as published by S&P and it shows home valuations up 7.3 percent annually.

But there are three big reasons why of all the ways you can track what home prices are doing why this report isn’t really good. First, the index is a composite, a generalization based on 20 U.S. cities and not even the twenty biggest cities either.

Houston is #4. Philly is #6. Neither’s included by S&P.

Minneapolis is though. It’s 46. And Tampa, the 49th biggest city.

Second, it excludes condos and multi-unit homes which in larger cities like the ones tracked account for a larger number of homes actually sold. But, third and most important, the S&P data is old. The report that came out April 30 is for data from February which is now 3 months ago.

That’s ancient history when it comes to housing. What’s three months ago got to do with today? Nothing.

Use real-time data because you’re buying in real-time. Subscribe to our main channel for more mortgage news. I’m Dan with Homebuyer.com.

Happy homebuying.