Home Prices Falling or Growing Less Quickly?

Both FHFA and Case Shiller released home price data this week with some mixed messages for the housing market. The first thing to remember about the major home price indices is that they run about 2 months behind--for the month of March in the present case. Another important consideration when looking at month-to-month movement is that the FHFA price index is seasonally adjusted whereas Case Shiller is not. The unadjusted Case Shiller data is easy to spot on the chart below due to its regular peaks and valleys at the same time of year, almost every year. The monthly data doesn't look too troubling.  Both metrics are mostly operating in positive territory and the FHFA index isn't any lower than it was last June.  Actually, the index itself is higher (since the chart measures mon