Home prices in the Tri-Cities two Metropolitan Statistical Areas continued trending lower in November on two major price indicators.

The CoreLogic House Price Index and the Northeast Tennessee Association of Realtors year-to-date average sales price have loosely followed the same trend pattern for six months. That pattern is similar to what we see with job creation.

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The region is still in a growth mode, but the growth rate is slowing. The average private sector wage indicator for November is not available. The Bureau of Labor Statistics for that data moved the monthly average all the way back to late 2012 – a signal that the data is undergoing a revision. That’s roughly the same period when the local labor market did a double dip after a quick recovery from the Great Recession and began a 22-month funk. That was also the same period when the monthly Household Report used to measure employment and for the unemployment rate underwent a couple of major annual revisions.

CoreLogic November report for Kingsport-Bristol says home prices – including distressed sales – increased by 2.8% compared to November last year. The HPI for the Johnson City MSA was 1.2% better than November last year.

Home prices nationwide were up 7.1%.

CoreLogic forecasts that home prices will increase by 4.7% on a year-over-year basis from November this year to November 2017. That forecast is a projection of home prices using the HPI and other economic variables. Values are derived from state-level forecasts by weighting indices according to the number of owner-occupied households for each state.

The forecast is not available for MSAs.

NETAR’s year-to-date data is computed on the average prices of single-family residences that are listed on the regional Multiple Listing Service.

As the chart indicates the year-over-year trend for the four indicators follows the same basic pattern most of the time. This is especially true of the Johnson City MSA. Kingsport-Bristol’s data often has bigger swings than the other indicators and moves in the opposite direction of the HPI trend.

A primary value of the two price indices is to illustrate that local prices and home values are more conservative than the information used in mass media. It helps put local market conditions in context.

CoreLogic’s HPI provides measures for multiple market segments based on property type, price, time between sales, local time (conforming v. non-conforming) and distressed sales.

NETAR’s YTD price data is a single-sourced for single-family residential sales only.

The NETAR December and Annual Trends Report should be available in several weeks.

Categories: CORE DATA, REAL ESTATE