The St. Louis Fed has a nice one-pager that illustrates how the housing boom differed across homes in different price tiers.
In each of the four cities they examine (Boston, Cleveland, Phoenix, and Tampa), low-priced houses experienced the biggest boom (a relative concept in Cleveland, to be sure) followed by the biggest bust:
The authors interpret this as evidence that:
Middle- and upper-tier home buyers were more insulated from many of [the factors that drove the boom and bust in the prices of low-price tier homes]. They had less need for the newer mortgage products, as most of these consumers were not first time buyers. As homeowners, they had equity to put toward their purchase, in contrast to most lower-tier first-time home buyers.
The pattern is particularly striking in Phoenix, where the price index for low-price homes has now fallen below the indices for middle- and high-price homes.
(ht: Torsten Slok)
Fascinating chart, Don. In Phoenix it does appear that the least expensive homes have bottomed out, but there is very little to no pressure driving prices back up, yet. However, for Jumbo RE loan properties there is both extreme pressure down, and a lack of sales. The supply of listed home is years!, not months. And, there still is little to no purchase or REFI funding for Jumbo loan homes. Thanks.