The art of measuring regional home prices is not perfect, but a recent report by one housing tracker shows how rare it is for a market to have regained all the losses created by real estate’s burst bubble.
Clear Capital of Truckee, California, says only four of its home-price indexes for 30 major U.S. housing markets had rebounded off the the market crash and were at 10-year highs in May.
Home prices cratered as risky, easy-to-get mortgages were cut off, with peak-to-bottom losses running 37 percent nationally by Clear Capital’s math.
Orange County, California’s, median selling price, as measured by CoreLogic Inc., hit $645,000 in April, the first time back at its pre-recession peak from June 2007.
Clear Capital reports Orange County as part of a mix of Los Angeles and Orange counties, and that index is not back at its cyclical high.
The L.A.-O.C. index for May by Clear Capital was still 13 percent off its 10-year high set in August 2006, after jumping 61 percent from the July 2009 mid-recession low, including an 8 percent rise in the 12 months ended in May.
This L.A.-O.C. price index fell 46 percent, top-to-trough, in the downturn.
The four metro areas with a May index at a 10-year high were:
- San Jose, California: Up 78 percent off its 10-year low after gaining 10 percent in the past year.
- Denver: Up 65 percent off the 10-year trough after gaining 11 percent in the last 12 months.
- Dallas: Up 54 percent off the recent low after rising 10 percent in a year.
- Portland, Oregon: Up 50 percent off the cyclical bottom after rising 10 percent in a year.
By the way, U.S. home prices are still 16 percent off the 10-year high high, by this math.
National prices are up 32 percent off the recent low, and are up 5 percent in a year.
Clear Capital found the biggest jumps off the bottom among the 30 largest markets were seen in Detroit (up 127 percent off its low but sill 38 percent off the peak) and San Francisco (up 93 percent from the low and just 2 percent from the old pinnacle).
Elsewhere in SoCal, Inland Empire prices are still 33 percent off the old peak after jumping 70 percent from the post-recession low, while San Diego prices are 11 percent off the old top after a 59 percent rebound from the bottom.
