If you said San Francisco, you are very wrong (as recently shown in "Bizarro Housing Bubble Spills Over Into "Overbid Madness" [5]). No, according to the latest Case Shiller data, the one city (out of 20) where home prices dropped in March, somewhat inexplicably considering the ridiculous flipping of houses taking place in the ultra-luxury segment, was New York.
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From Case Shiller:
New York was the only city to decline in the month of March. San Francisco posted the biggest gain of 2.4% with Seattle following at +1.9%. All 20 cities improved in March as compared to their February returns. Cleveland improved the most; it went from a decline of 1.6% in February to a gain of 1.5% in March. Cleveland and San Francisco posted their biggest returns since last June.
All 20 cities continued to record positive year-over-year returns. Thirteen of the 20 MSAs showed lower annual increases in March. Tampa showed the most deceleration – the city posted +13.4% year-over-year in February and +10.7% in March. Las Vegas and San Francisco, the only two cities to post annual gains of over 20%, also saw their rates decelerate; they gained 21.2% and 20.9%, respectively. The only six cities to show higher year-over-year returns in March were Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis and New York.
So does this mean the oligarch bid is fading? Somehow we doubt it.