Piggington's Econo-Almanac

Dueling Job Surveys

Rich Toscano — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:08:49 +0000

A commenter over at Piggington (my own little internet stomping ground) raised an interesting point in regard to last month's article on San Diego employment. The reader noted that the monthly data I cite measures the number of jobs held in San Diego with no regard for whether the job holders are actually San Diego residents. There is a separate data series that tracks the employment status of San Diego residents whether they are employed in the county or elsewhere. And, for the time being, the two job surveys are providing mixed signals.

continue reading at voiceofsandiego.org

The Housing Battleship-Turned-Party Boat

Rich Toscano — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:30:54 +0000

A while back, I noticed a funny thing about the year-over-year rate of change in the Case-Shiller index of San Diego home prices. It seemed that movements in the annual price change rate from positive to negative or from negative to positive provided a good indicator that the long-term price trend had changed direction.

Allow me to demonstrate with some graphs.

The graph below shows the home price index in blue with the year-over-year rate of change for the index in orange. It covers a ten-year period more or less centered around the early-1990s housing bust.

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October 2009 Resale Data Rodeo

Rich Toscano — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:54:23 +0000

It looks like the spring/summer rally has continued into autumn, as the median price per square foot was up 1.5% from the prior month:

Divining Case-Shiller

Rich Toscano — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:53:25 +0000

The Case-Shiller index is the most accurate measure of aggregate home price changes, for reasons long-since described here. But it's been an ongoing gripe of mine (and everyone's) that the index lags so badly. The data that was just released a couple days ago on October 27, for instance, only tracks home prices through August.

So lately I've taken to using the median price per square foot data to guess, for lack of a better word, what the Case-Shiller index values for more recent months might be. An example of this estimation can be found in the graph below, which appeared in the writeup of the most recent median price data:

Here's how I arrive at these estimates. (Non-nerds may wish to fall asleep for the remainder of this paragraph)...

continue reading at voiceofsandiego.org

Case-Shiller's Summer Super-Bounce Continued in August

Rich Toscano — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:25:05 +0000

Nobody should be very surprised that the Case-Shiller index rose again in August.

This time around, the long-suffering low tier turned in the best performance with a robust 2.5 percent increase. The middle tier rose 1.6 percent for the month and the high tier increased .3 percent, with the aggregate index rising 1.6 percent.

Here's a graph of the three price tiers and the aggregate index since their bubble peaks:

continue reading at voiceofsandiego.org

Foreclosures Edge Down Again

Rich Toscano — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:32:40 +0000

Here, a little later than usual, is the monthly foreclosure activity update.

The following chart shows that default notices and trustee sales, respectively the initial and final stages of foreclosure, both declined last month.

But both defaults and trustee sales remain at levels that are, shall we say, elevated.

continue reading at voiceofsandiego.org

Housing-Related Job Sectors Taking the Big Long-Term Hit

Rich Toscano — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:42:43 +0000

Let's take a slightly different look at the construction, finance/real estate, and retail job sectors. I have long highlighted these three industries in my analysis because they were directly involved in the housing bubble, benefitting from the respective frenzies for building homes, lending funds, selling homes, and spending all the money that issued forth from the regional home equity ATM.

continue reading at voiceofsandiego.org

Job Losses Shrink for a Second Month

Rich Toscano — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:13:05 +0000

The rate of year-over-year job losses in San Diego declined again last month, according to the latest estimates from the EDD. Between September 2008 and September 2009, the region lost 52,000 jobs. This is not great, obviously, but it's an improvement over recent months.

continue reading at voiceofsandiego.org

September 2009 Resale Data Rodeo

Rich Toscano — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:41:07 +0000

Some have asked what distinguishes a Data Rodeo from a Chartfest or for that matter the rarely seen Chart Extravaganza. The answer, which I will fabricate as I type this sentence, is that Data Rodeos are reserved for the monthly roundup of resale data, whereas the two alternate names are used for generic chart collections based upon the levels of extravagance and general chartiness contained therein.

I hope that clears everything up.

Prices

The rally in San Diego's median price per square foot continued through September, with the ppsf rising 2.2% for detached homes, 5.5% for (much more volatile) condos, and 3.1% for a volume-weighted aggregate.

Government Intervention in the Housing Market a Fact of Life

Rich Toscano — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:32:16 +0000

For a long time I have been discussing, with various degrees of rantiness, government intervention in the housing market. When I first touched on the subject in early 2007, before any bailouts had begun, some of the potential interventions I envisioned seemed kind of far-fetched. By late 2007, as I noted in a Manimal-referencing followup, many of these same interventions were already underway.

And now? The lengths to which the government has gone to prop up the housing market have surpassed even my own cynical expectations. By a long shot.

continue reading at voiceofsandiego.org