Home Prices Drop 0.6%, Raising Questions About Loan Limit Change

Home Prices Drop 0.6%, Raising Questions About Loan Limit Change

Today brought the release of the two biggest home price indices (HPIs) for the month of July from S&P Case-Shiller and FHFA.  Both HPIs showed a marked deceleration in home price appreciation in June with Case Shiller up only 0.2% and FHFA up 0.1%.  Both moved into negative territory in July with Case Shiller down 0.4% and FHFA down 0.6%. The notion of falling home prices is potentially troubling to those who lived though the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008.  But while the present day price contraction has yet to fully play out, there are still significant differences from 2008.  In fact, even if the FHFA price index (the broader of the two) dropped by roughly 20% as it did by the end of 2008, it would merely take year-over-year numbers back to flat. While "flat"