Category: Market Statistics

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Bay Area Home Purchase vs. S&P 500

We recently put together an analysis comparing the comparative investment returns of buying a San Francisco Bay Area house, gold, Apple stock, an S&P 500 Index fund or putting money into a bank CD in January 2012 (Of Real Estate, Gold & Apple Stock). Not unreasonably, the issue arose regarding returns over a longer term. Now, whatever time period is used will always be fundamentally arbitrary, and different periods will often generate dramatically different results. Twenty years is a round number, which allows a nice mix of recessions, bubbles, crashes and recoveries to be encompassed within our inquiry. Continue reading →

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New Case Shiller Index

The new February S&P Case-Shiller Index for high-price-tier homes in the 5-county San Francisco Metro Area increased almost 1% from the January reading. This puts the Index up about 20% over the past 12 months, and up about 34% since … Continue reading →

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September Case-Shiller Index Released

The Case-Shiller Index for the San Francisco Metro Area covers the house markets of 5 Bay Area counties, divided into 3 price tiers, each constituting one third of unit sales. Most of the city of San Francisco’s house sales are in the “high price tier.” The Index is published 2 months after the month in question and reflects a 3-month rolling average. September’s Index was just released today, November 26th.

This first chart illustrates the price recovery of the Bay Area high-price-tier home market which really got under way in 2012. In both 2012 and 2013, home prices surged in the spring and then plateaued in the summer-autumn. The surge in prices that occurred in spring of 2013 was particularly dramatic, reflecting a frenzied market of huge buyer demand, historically low interest rates, increasing consumer confidence and extremely low inventory. In San Francisco itself, it was further exacerbated by the high-tech-fueled explosion of new wealth. The market has since calmed down somewhat and that cooling is reflected in the Index readings of the past three months (through September). ...  Additional Details