Thursday, June 6, 2013

6/6/2013: US House Prices: Trouble Brewing for Monetary Policy Dilemma

Now, QE seems to be feeding through into the real assets, not just financial ones, in the case of the US. Here's a chart from Pictet on CoreLogic house prices index changes and underlying house prices fundamentals:



And the same adjusting for inflation, annualised 3mo series (q/q):


CoreLogic rose 3.2% m/m in April, following a +2.2% m/m rise in March. Based on Pictet seasonal adjustments, "the increase remains surprisingly high: +1.6%, after +1.7% in March. Since the end of last year, house prices have risen by 6.4% (after seasonal adjustments), an astonishing annualised rate of 20.4%. On a y-o-y basis, the increase reached 12.1%, the highest since April 2006."

Although as the chart below shows, things are still ok in 'affordability' terms (index of house prices), with recent rises from the trough returning the index to mid-2009 levels. It would take a further 28% rise to hit pre-crisis peak of March 2006:


Lest we forget - unwinding the QE will hammer interest rates on longer maturities (see: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/05/1652013-on-that-impossible-monetary.html) which will spell trouble for debt-funded assets, like property.

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