The Case-Shiller house price indexes for February were released Tuesday. Zillow forecasts Case-Shiller a month early, and I like to check the Zillow forecasts since they have been pretty close.
From Matthew Speakman at Zillow: February Case-Shiller Results & March Forecast: Last Look at The World that Was
the Case-Shiller home price index for February – the last before the data begin to show effects of the coronavirus outbreak – offers a final look at a housing market that was primed for a stellar spring selling season. …
Things were looking up for the housing market in mid-winter, with low interest rates and still-secure job prospects combining to boost demand for housing just as a growing share of millennials were looking to finally take the leap into home ownership. Teamed with record-low levels of for-sale inventory, these demand factors had begun to push home prices upward after the growth rate spent most of 2019 decelerating. The economic carnage that’s occurred since, particularly in the labor markets, has been well documented and the true impact on home prices remains to be seen.
emphasis added
The Zillow forecast is for the year-over-year change for the Case-Shiller National index to be at 4.4% in March, up from 4.2% in February.
The Zillow forecast is for the 20-City index to be up 3.8% YoY in March from 3.5% in February, and for the 10-City index to increase to 3.3% YoY compared to 2.9% YoY in February.
Note that Case-Shiller is a three month average, so the March data will include both January and February. Also, Case-Shiller uses closed transactions, and most of the transactions that closed in March were signed in January and February – so the March price indexes will still be mostly pre-crisis data.