Quarterly Housing Market Performance for Athens-Clarke

FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Agency) uses the revised Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and Divisions as defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 2008. These MSAs and Divisions are based on 2000 Census data. According to OMB, an MSA comprises the central county or counties containing the core, plus adjacent outlying counties having a high degree of social and economic integration with the central county as measured through commuting.

For information about the current MSAs, please visit:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/bulletins/fy2009/09-01.pdf

MSA HPI Comparisons

Four-Quarter Percent Change in FHFA MSA-Level House Price Indexes (All-Transactions Index, 2009Q2)

Year	Quarter	Athens-Clarke County, GA	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA
2009	2	-1.53	-3.49
2009	1	-0.90	-1.73
2008	4	1.43	-2.89
2008	3	-0.40	-2.05
2008	2	3.81	-0.58
2008	1	2.94	1.07
2007	4	2.28	1.42
2007	3	4.10	2.17
2007	2	4.50	3.70
2007	1	5.09	3.49
2006	4	5.76	3.47
2006	3	4.76	2.65

What we see is a relative strength in Athens-Clarke as compared to Atlanta since third quarter of 2003. Not surprising, but Athens has maintained a price level in the past four quarters of about 98.5 percent of where home price values were a year ago this time. In comparison, the Atlanta market is roughly 89.68 percent of where it was at the beginning of Q2 2008.

MSAs are defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). If specified criteria are met and an MSA contains a single core population greater than 2.5 million, the MSA is divided into Metropolitan Divisions. The following MSAs have been divided into Metropolitan Divisions: Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH; Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI; Dallas-Fort Worth- Arlington, TX; Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI; Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA; Miami- Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, FL; New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA; Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD; San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA; Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA; and Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV. For these MSAs, FHFA reports data for each Division, rather than the MSA as a whole. FHFA requires that an MSA (or Metropolitan Division) must have at least 1,000 total transactions before it may be published. Additionally, an MSA or Division must have had at least 10 transactions in any given quarter for that quarterly value to be published. Blanks are displayed where this criterion is not met.