[Home price] "results are worst since World War II" trumpeted the USA Today sub headline to their December 27 story "Home prices in 11 big metro areas see record drops in Oct." This story was based on the Case-Shiller composite index of home prices.  Others (Kenneth Harney in his article at http://tinyurl.com/ywqo5t) and I have commented before in this space about the shortcomings of Case-Shiller, but this is getting ridiculous.  They are reporting "October" numbers in late December, but it's worse than that.

The Case-Shilling index was reporting prices of transactions that closed in October.  Generally, that means that they went under contract in August.  So, in late December they were reporting August real estate market activity. So this is NEWS?

I have also quoted here Lawrence Yun, National Association of Realtors® Chief Economist, who pointed out that the August market was severely hurt by the peaking of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, resulting in very disappointing October numbers (See NAR's report at http://tinyurl.com/2calxw).  The August market hardly qualifies as news.

Look for NAR's report on existing home sales for November (September contracts) on New Year's Eve.  It may be something to celebrate.