By Julie Wernau | In Chicago, the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price index declined 1.7 percent in January to 125.11, a 4.4 percent decline over the previous year, even as U.S. home prices showed the smallest annual decline in almost three years.
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index fell just 0.7 percent from last year on a seasonally adjusted basis. The index reading of 146.32 was almost in line with analysts’ expectations, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.
Better still, prices rose 0.3 percent from December to January, the
eighth consecutive monthly gain. Among the 20 cities in the index, 12
rose.
The index, released Tuesday, is up nearly 4 percent from its bottom in
May 2009, but still almost 30 percent below its May 2006 peak. In
Chicago, the index bottomed out at 122.30 in April 2009 and reached its
high in October 2006 at 168.59.
With the Associated Press
There is a clear double dip forming for single family homes (the numbers reported above). See the blue line on the first graph at http://chicagohousingstats.com
However, condos (green line) look a bit worse in that they just hit a new low price level in January and have fallen 9.5% in the last year.
I get a tiny bit of satisfaction knowing that the homes of the people who created this mess in the first place have also declined in value, probably well more than the average.