Talk:Case–Shiller index

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Came to find out what the index is and the page doesn’t tell you which seems like a huge omission. What does a high number mean? What does a low one mean?

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Shouldn't it be "indices", not "indeces"?

Two sets of Case Shiller Index data
I think there is a fundamental problem with this page, that I actually came to wiki to try and figure out myself. There are two sets of Case Shiller Index data available: one from Robert Shillers website, that has annual, or for the last several decades, quarterly, data points that appear to have 1890 set as the reference/100 point. This data set peaks at ~198 in early 2006, and the latest value is ~134 in 4Q 2013. Other other case shiller index data available, from Core Logic, who as I understand runs index funds for the stock market based on this data (?), has monthly index values from January 1987 to the present. This indexes' reference/100 point was set to January 2000. As a result the numbers are different than the data from Shiller, who has it referenced to 1890. I don't know if they are calculated in different ways otherwise. The high point of Core-Logics data set is 206.52 in July 2006 (for the 20 city composite), while the latest value is 165.69. I know enough to know there is a difference here, but not necessarily to explain why or how exaclty or what differences in purpose or significance the two data sets have. But it is apparent in the reading the article that different editors seem to be talking about the different data sets interchangeably, without recognizing the existance of the other. Wonder7 (talk) 04:38, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Returns on stocks
These are quoted at over 300% in the past ten years - can we get a citation on this? 212.2.163.201 (talk) 20:39, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

General Problems
The index is monthly, not quarterly. Also, it tracks price 'change', not nominal prices - as the values of the index are not nominal home values. Each index is set to 100 for the base period (January of 2000), and the index numbers are estimates of the 'percentage change' in home prices from both before and after that time. so is the index based on nominal pricing, or real (ie inflation adjusted) prices?
 * The main Case Shiller indices are quoted in nominal termsHomePriceFutures (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

The valuation section, relating to rents may be off topic, as rents are not a factor in compiling the index. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.101.11.84 (talk) 22:37, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Inflation
Is this index adjusted for inflation? -- Beland (talk) 17:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

"Top 10 Metropolitan Statistical Areas"???
The article says, "CSXR is a composite index of the home price index for the top 10 Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States", and provides no link/citation. I do not believe this can possibly be true - the index does not includes places like Houston (fourth largest city in America), Dallas/Ft Worth (bigger than Houston), or San Antonio, or St Louis. . . . but it includes. . . . . Las Vegas???? The index is obviously not the top 10 MSAs in America. I mean, Houston or San Antonio aren't even included in the Case/Shiller 20-city index. I think Case and Shiller picked an arbitrary set of cities based on what they thought was a cross-section of America. I think the statement in the article is not true and should come out. Comments before I take it out??? Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.43.186 (talk) 21:47, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't easily find a source for the inclusion criteria, but you're right - this is clearly not a "top" list. Maybe it was a "top ten" at some historical point, but the wording is clearly wrong in the article.  I've tried to clean it up a little and will keep looking for a source.  Note: San Antonio would not show up on a top 10 or top 20 (it's #28), but Houston or DFW sure would.  Kuru   (talk)  13:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't have the cite, but I recall there's some type of problem with collecting Houston's data, which is why it's not in the index. Something about the Houston area realtors won't consolidate their data properly for upload, or the data is balkanized into a bunch of different systems, or something like that. i.e. it's a technical issue, not a political decision. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.49.105.129 (talk) 14:36, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Offensive omissions
This article never tells us specifically what the data are nor what function of the data the index is. Anyone who is not offended isn't paying attention. It says:
 * The indices are calculated from data on repeat sales of single-family homes,

Is it the number of houses sold in a year? Or in a month? Or the amount of money that changes hands in house sales per day? Or the number of people living in houses that they buy? Are the ages of the buyers or sellers taken into account? Or what? Am I supposed to conclude that somebody (and I shouldn't wonder who) knows the answers and therefore I shouldn't want to know? Michael Hardy (talk) 23:15, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Offended is an interesting choice of wording. Protonk (talk) 23:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems like the right choice when the article presupposes that the reader is a gullible moron&mdash;that being the sort of person who would be happy to read an article that says "The Case–Shiller index is a wonderful thing that can tell you all about the housing market, but never mind what it is, just believe what you're told; you shouldn't want to understand or to judge its value or uses for yourself; you should just trust." Michael Hardy (talk) 00:51, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok. Just seems like a minor thing to get so exercised over.  Protonk (talk) 00:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I looked for awhile to find secondary literature that doesn't gloss over the particulars and didn't see any. I look at the description and I get a pretty good idea of what they do (it is something like value at t - value at previous t must reflect the integral from previous t to t of changes in the housing market the house is in. They probably also weight it to make it representative of some target population based on sale velocities by geography.) Do you want the whole equation that they use? I'm not even sure they share that, or that more than a few people would care. I guess I'm assuming that if a journalist doesn't want to publish it, it isn't of general interest. We could probably add the original one from what I assume is the original paper, but I doubt that it is what they use anymore. 018 (talk) 02:21, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It is certainly of interest to anyone who wants to know that the Case–Schiller index is, because without it, they don't know. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:26, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Michael. I was trying to figure out what the index is good for, and coming to this page I see a plot of some undefined number over time. Supposedly it measures the housing price change- how? Is it the average price per square foot? Is it the first derivative? Is it some weird complicated function? What? I can't even make basic conclusions from this article: When the index is 100, are prices falling or rising or static? When the index goes from 110 to 120 did price go up by 100%, or 10%, or what? Yes their equation should be on wikipedia. Your objection is silly. No, if a journalist doesn't publish something that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Since when are journalists arbitrators of what is important? Journalists don't publish in-depth calculations on cutting edge quantum physics either, but it's still on wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.20.91.142 (talk) 15:01, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I too agree that this is an eggregious omission. Upon first glance I thought I was viewing average home prices adjusted for inflation. I have no idea how to interpret this data without a clear explanation of how it's computed and what it's intended to represent.Jeff Axelrod (talk) 15:07, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Histocial Values Section
This section really needs to be updated. Has dated information circa July 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.198.205.9 (talk) 21:33, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

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Article conflates Case-Shiller index with the historical index on Shiller's website
The top post on the talk page (from 2014) makes a good point. There is a fundamental problem with this article, which is that it conflates the Case-Shiller index with the historical index on Shiller's website. By historical index, I mean the index that starts in 1890 and was used in Shiller's book, Irrational Exuberance. If you go to http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.htm and click on "US Home Prices 1890-Present," the dataset clearly splices together data from multiple sources. Those sources are Grebler, Five-CityMedian, PHCPI, and S&P/CoreLogic/Case-Shiller. Shiller himself only refers to the data from January 1975 onward as the "Case-Shiller index." For this reason, I think the entire discussion of this separate index should be removed. Not to mention that the rest of the discussion is rather facile. It's not particularly interesting to know that two different series indexed to 100 in different years have different values, or that the calculations are not the same (clearly, they're not, since one is a mishmash of four separate series).