Breaking: S&P Case/Shiller index reports to cover condos in Boston
Last week, I heard Karl Case speak in front of a room of real estate agents. An audience member (not me) pointed out that his S&P Case/Shiller housing index has some serious limitations. For one thing, it doesn’t include condominiums, doesn’t include new home sales, and it only includes the top 20 metropolitan areas. Besides that, it’s perfect!
Professor Case’s response was, “There is an index for condos, check out the website.”
Well, it wasn’t there a week ago (I checked), but it will be, come Tuesday morning.
From the S&P website:
Standard & Poor’s, the world’s leading index provider and publisher of the widely followed S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, announced today that it will launch new indices designed to track condominium prices in five major metropolitan areas in the United States – Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. In addition, Standard & Poor’s will also publish seasonally-adjusted versions of the headline S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, covering the 20 MSAs, the 10-and 20-City Composites, and the National Composite, as well as seasonally-adjusted versions of the new condo indices.
“Prices for condominiums can behave differently than those for single family homes,” says David Blitzer, Managing Director & Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard and Poor’s.
“Having access to a broader range of indices will allow property owners, investors and others to better understand how these different residential property types behave, while also providing a more complete picture of the overall existing residential property market,” he says.
Hmmm. It’s not exactly clear if the new index will carry the Case/Shiller brand name; I assume not, since their names are not mentioned. w/e.
The condominium indices cover five major metropolitan areas and include historical data beginning in January 1995. The seasonally adjusted data will have the same history as its underlying index, which can begin as early as January 1987.