Tracking the Housing Bubble Across Metropolitan Areas – A Spatio-Temporal Comparison of House Price Indices

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of five available house price indices that are used to track house prices at the metropolitan area level. These five indices are (1) the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI), (2) the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller® Home Price Indices, (3) an adjusted version of the FHFA House Price Index, (4) the Zillow Home Value Index, and (5) the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Median Home Price. This study first discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these indices for use in a spatio-temporal analysis. Then, it provides a comparative analysis of their change rate for 10 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) for two time periods: the third quarter of 2006 through the third quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2007 through the first quarter of 2008. In addition, this research constructs a series of spatio-temporal indicators based on time and spatial lags of the HPI for 302 MSAs for the 2000 to 2007 period. The results of this data brief could help researchers interested in spatio-temporal analyses of the latest housing bubble and of house price indices at large.

Keywords: HUD, Cityscape, 2011, Housing