Peter Boockvar of Miller Tabak made a good point in a commentary this morning. Discussing when and how we might find a bottom, he notes: "In my opinion it comes down to predominantly one factor and that is when house prices stop going down. When that occurs we will be able to comfortably quantify all the remaining exposure and securities tied to it."
With that said, the Case-Shiller home price index was weak but not as weak as expected. The composite of 20 metro areas fell 1.4 percent from March to April; a decline of 2.0 percent was expected. This was the smallest month over month drop since August-September of last year. Year over year, the decline was 15.3 percent; 15.9 percent was expected.
Bottom line: prices are still declining, so we have not hit a clear bottom, but the rate of decline is slowing.
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