VIDEO: Creator of Case Shiller home price index shares his housing thoughts.

Revisiting home price guru Robert Shiller’s comments that ‘owning a home isn’t necessarily smart’.

Case Shiller’s August report showed home prices across 20 major U.S. metro areas were up 0.2% since July, the fifth straight monthly ’20-City’ gain but it’s barely a gain. Prices are down 3.8% since August 2010, a slightly lower year-over-year loss from last month. Home prices are still down drastically from 2006 highs and now [...]

Yesterday’s S&P Case Shiller May report showed home prices across 20 major U.S. metro areas were up 0.6% since April, the second straight monthly gain after seven straight months of decline. But prices are down 4.5% since last May, and prices are down 32.3% from June/July 2006 to May 2011. Case Shiller Index co-creator and [...]

Rates are amazing because economic news is terrible. Today’s links explore just how terrible. Plus there’s a bTunes dedication to loan agents battling rebate recapture. So click play on James Brown’s The Big Payback and read up. – Is Residential Real Estate Worse Than Depression (Ritholtz) – Will U.S. Repeat Monetary/Fiscal Mistakes of 1937? (Krugman [...]

This great home price chart from VisualizingEconomics (via Barry Ritholtz) speaks for itself, but below chart is a description from VisualizingEconomics clarifying whether a home seller should be looking at inflation adjusted (real) versus not inflation adjusted (nominal) prices. Click for full size. A $10,000 house in 1890 would be worth almost the same in [...]

Robert Shiller Defends Fannie/Freddie Are we really better off winding down Freddie and Fannie entirely? Most, including Robert Shiller of S&P Case Shiller Home Price Index fame, of the mortgage and real estate professionals in the US would suggest that we’re better off with those agencies staying around in one form or another. Core Logic: [...]

Jumpy Rate Market Response To GDP & Home Sales Reports Rates dropped 0.2% early last week then rose Friday to end the week even. The $109b in Treasury auctions throughout last week caused mortgage bonds to sell off slightly, and July’s record low New Home Sales (down 32.4% year-over-year) and Existing Home Sales (down 25.5% [...]

Here’s an NYT op-ed with some useful history of the 30yr mortgage. It also discusses some ideas about flexible mortgages, where for example, a borrower can have a 30yr fixed that could have interim periods of interest-only when a borrower needs it. These ideas are not new. Robert Shiller, of Case Shiller home price index [...]

In June 2009, publicly available housing derivatives were launched by Robert Shiller and Karl Case, the economists who run the most widely followed U.S. home price indicator: the S&P Case Shiller Index. The products are called MacroShares, and are essentially options any investor can use to make bets about whether home prices will rise or [...]