By the Way, House Prices Just Went Up

Yesterday at 9 AM Standard and Poor’s released the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Index data, showing that existing homes actually increased in price in May, for the first monthly rise since July 2006. All the major media outlets ran with it as their lead story, the stock market zoomed up more than 5%, and Fed Chairman Bernanke announced that the recession is now officially over.

Okay, I made most of that up. But the C-S 20 city composite really was up for the first time in 33 months. And that’s really a big deal, not that anybody seems to have noticed. This is not an index that changes direction often. Before the run of 33 down months was a run of 55 consecutive up months going back to January 2002. (In fact, other than small declines in December 2001 and November 1998, the 10 city index was up every month from March 1997 to June 2006.)

Obviously, there is no guarantee that this will be the start of a long run of positive months, but a change in direction is a comparatively rare event and ought to be newsworthy. All the more so given the centrality of house prices in the causes of the Great Recession. And yet this isn’t apparently a big story.

The New York Times’ web site had nothing on it for most of Tuesday and this morning has a cautious article about first stirrings of hope, but they are leading with the Microsoft-Yahoo deal to cooperate on internet searching. As of 9 AM this morning, you had to scroll down the Wall Street Journal’s site to find a mention of house prices, at the very bottom of the What’s News roundup. Bloomberg also buries it, ranking it the third story under Personal Finance.

Part of this downplaying may be due to the S&P press release from yesterday, which was titled "Home Price Declines Continue to Abate According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices" and managed to save the tidbit that prices rose on a monthly basis for its second page. I really don’t understand what the S&P PR people are thinking. Generally, you try to hype the news your organization has to report, not downplay it.

I am not going to break any new ground observing that the media tends toward the pessimistic when discussing the economy. Partly this is due to the nature of news reporting. Modest growth and prosperity is dog-bites-man. But the Great Recession is great copy, so there’s no rush to report that it is over.

I think there is also something else going on here. The business outlook for the mainstream media is grim. Newspapers are closing and reporters are losing jobs or taking big pay cuts. And although the state of the wider economy is accelerating the decline in traditional media, it’s pretty clear this is not a temporary thing. It’s no wonder that reporters and editors concerned their jobs could suddenly disappear have trouble seeing green shoots and silver linings.

But this is a green shoot. A healthy seedling pushing its nose out of the soil right at ground zero.

Housing, Media | Frank Curmudgeon | July 29, 2009 11:00 am

32 Comments

By Luke, July 29, 2009 @ 11:55 am

Home prices usually bounce up a bit in May.

Seasonally adjusted Case-Schiller (accounting for annual summer bumps) is actually down still. In other words, normally, the bump from April to May would be larger than this – consequently, the market is still declining.

Kudos to the news outlets for not over-hyping this.

One “green shoot” in this though – the market is now declining less quickly, so that’s a plus.
By Darkside, July 29, 2009 @ 11:55 am

An economic turnaround would be a roadblock to this administration. They need an economic crisis to impose their economic policy and “rally the troops” as it were.
By Kent @ The Financial Philosopher, July 29, 2009 @ 12:17 pm

You are absolutely right when you say, “the Great Recession is great copy, so there’s no rush to report that it is over.”

The media always lags reality. They attempt to be “current” with sentiment issues, but sentiment is a culmination of emotions built up over time; therefore, “current” is always “past” in this regard.

For this reason, many contrarians turn bullish when magazine covers show pictures of bears and headlines screaming, “Worst Recession Since Depression.”

“When we think this present as going to be, it exists not yet; and when we think it is existing, it is already past.” ~ Henri Bergson
By gpr, July 29, 2009 @ 2:35 pm

Generally, you try to hype the news your organization has to report, not downplay it.

Well, not always. I’ve written tons of releases where the real news was intentionally buried.

But this is good news, so you’re right. Bang the drums!
By Jim, July 29, 2009 @ 2:48 pm

I saw headlines on the increase in housing prices yesterday. Maybe they were fleeting or just not widely reported. It was on Yahoo news at least, which is what I usually read…

Reuters & AP covered it:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090728/bs_nm/us_usa_economy_2
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090728/ap_on_re_us/us_home_prices_5
By Frank Curmudgeon, July 29, 2009 @ 9:28 pm

Luke: Assuming you meant to type “tend to go up” rather than “usually bounce” you make an excellent point. S&P does put out a seasonally adjusted version, to which nobody, including S&P, pays attention. They don’t even format the spreadsheet. If I was in charge seasonal adjusted would be the standard. (Among other changes.) But in the meantime, I feel like I should keep with the numbers everybody else uses. And those long up and down streaks are in the unadjusted index.

Jim: I didn’t (mean to) say that the numbers went totally unreported, just under-reported.
By Jim, July 30, 2009 @ 2:01 pm

Frank, Yeah it sounds like it was under reported. THe news outlets tend to pick their headlines weird ways IMHO. Sometimes they lean towards the sensational too much which pushes the hard news to page 2. Yahoo is more of a news aggregator so I think they tend to just run the latest headlines and I don’t think they have someone manually deciding which headline to lead with. So with Yahoo you may get more of the straight news and less of what the news editor thinks we all want to read about.
By pressoun.sfolip.nl, May 1, 2019 @ 6:38 am

Helpful information. Fortunate me I found your site by accident, and I am shocked why this twist
of fate didn’t took place earlier! I bookmarked it.
By Arizona, September 23, 2019 @ 10:14 pm

hello!,I like your writing very so much! percentage we communicate more approximately your post on AOL?
I require a specialist in this house to solve my problem.
May be that’s you! Having a look forward to look you.
By spravki-kupit.ru, June 26, 2023 @ 5:27 pm

медицинская справка 2023
By диплом высшего образования москва, June 27, 2023 @ 1:38 pm

No matter if some one searches for his necessary thing, so he/she desires to be available that in detail, so that thing is maintained over here.
By накрутка яппи, July 30, 2023 @ 7:36 am

Pretty portion of content. I simply stumbled upon your weblog and in accession capital to claim that I acquire in fact enjoyed account your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing on your augment or even I fulfillment you get entry to persistently fast.
By smartremstroy.ru, July 31, 2023 @ 10:56 pm

Post writing is also a fun, if you know after that you can write or else it is complex to write.
By daachnik.ru, August 2, 2023 @ 1:32 am

For most up-to-date news you have to go to see web and on world-wide-web I found this website as a most excellent website for most up-to-date updates.
By delaremontnika.ru, August 2, 2023 @ 3:22 pm

Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up and let you know a few of the images aren’t loading correctly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different internet browsers and both show the same results.
By чистка диванов смолевичи, September 2, 2023 @ 9:18 am

I was able to find good info from your blog articles.
By чистка дивана на дому цена борисов, September 2, 2023 @ 12:59 pm

Greetings from Florida! I’m bored to tears at work so I decided to check out your site on my iphone during lunch break. I really like the knowledge you present here and can’t wait to take a look when I get home. I’m amazed at how quick your blog loaded on my cell phone .. I’m not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyhow, superb site!
By sadovoe-tut.ru, September 6, 2023 @ 4:50 pm

My programmer is trying to persuade me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the expenses. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using Movable-type on numerous websites for about a year and am worried about switching to another platform. I have heard excellent things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can transfer all my wordpress content into it? Any kind of help would be really appreciated!
By agrosadovnik.ru, September 6, 2023 @ 5:15 pm

It’s an awesome post designed for all the internet users; they will take benefit from it I am sure.
By loan places near me, October 7, 2023 @ 4:06 pm

I believe what you postedtypedsaidthink what you postedwrotesaidthink what you postedtypedbelieve what you postedwrotesaidWhat you postedwrote was very logicala bunch of sense. But, what about this?consider this, what if you were to write a killer headlinetitle?content?wrote a catchier title? I ain’t saying your content isn’t good.ain’t saying your content isn’t gooddon’t want to tell you how to run your blog, but what if you added a titlesomethingheadlinetitle that grabbed a person’s attention?maybe get people’s attention?want more? I mean %BLOG_TITLE% is a little plain. You might look at Yahoo’s home page and watch how they createwrite news headlines to get viewers interested. You might add a video or a related picture or two to get readers interested about what you’ve written. Just my opinion, it could bring your postsblog a little livelier.
By online television, October 9, 2023 @ 12:04 am

I think what you postedtypedthink what you postedtypedbelieve what you postedtypedbelieve what you postedtypedsaidWhat you postedwrote was very logicala lot of sense. But, what about this?think about this, what if you were to write a killer headlinetitle?content?wrote a catchier title? I ain’t saying your content isn’t good.ain’t saying your content isn’t gooddon’t want to tell you how to run your blog, but what if you added a titlesomethingheadlinetitle that grabbed people’s attention?maybe get a person’s attention?want more? I mean %BLOG_TITLE% is a little plain. You might peek at Yahoo’s home page and see how they createwrite news headlines to get viewers interested. You might add a video or a pic or two to get readers interested about what you’ve written. Just my opinion, it could bring your postsblog a little livelier.
By online television, October 10, 2023 @ 5:51 pm

Greate pieces. Keep writing such kind of information on your page. Im really impressed by your blog.
By сделать чек на гостиницу, October 12, 2023 @ 10:43 pm

Article writing is also a fun, if you be acquainted with after that you can write or else it is complex to write.
By гостиничные чеки купить, October 17, 2023 @ 4:09 am

After looking into a number of the blog posts on your web page, I truly like your way of blogging. I book-marked it to my bookmark site list and will be checking back soon. Take a look at my web site as well and let me know how you feel.
By online television, October 17, 2023 @ 6:46 pm

Hi my loved one! I want to say that this article is awesome, great written and come with almost all significant infos. I’d like to peer more posts like this .
By online television, October 19, 2023 @ 5:27 pm

Excellent post. I was checking continuously this blog and I am impressed! Very useful information specially the last part I care for such info a lot. I was seeking this particular info for a long time. Thank you and good luck.
By стяжка пола москва, October 23, 2023 @ 1:14 pm

Хотите получить идеально ровный пол в своем доме или офисе? Обратитесь к профессионалам на сайте styazhka-pola24.ru! Мы предлагаем услуги по стяжке пола любой сложности и площади, а также устройству стяжки пола под ключ в Москве и области.
By snabzhenie-obektov.ru, October 24, 2023 @ 9:33 am

поставки строительных материалов компания
By механизированная штукатурка, October 26, 2023 @ 11:08 am

Нужна механизированная штукатурка стен в Москве, но вы не знаете, как выбрать подрядчика? Обратитесь к нам на сайт mehanizirovannaya-shtukaturka-moscow.ru! Мы предлагаем услуги по машинной штукатурке стен любой площади и сложности, а также гарантируем доступные цены и высокое качество работ.
By где можно заказать гостиничные чеки в москве, October 29, 2023 @ 10:47 pm

Hi there this is somewhat of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding know-how so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
By boldxxx.win/v/pornplay148000313, August 28, 2024 @ 12:56 am

I will right awa snattch yoour rsss as I can’t inn finding your e-mail subbscription hyperlink orr
e-newsletter service. Do you’ve any? Kindly llet
mme recognize inn order tha I cohld subscribe. Thanks.
By indianpornfast.com/movie/idxhl5eMO13, August 28, 2024 @ 3:06 pm

I’m noot suree were you’re gettig your info, bbut grdeat topic.

I nneeds to spend some ttime llearning much more
orr understandingg more. Thanks forr excellent information I was lookkng forr this info foor my mission.