In one fell swoop, CoreLogic has added the most reputable name in home-price analytics to its roster of real estate data tools – but only its name.

Real estate analytics firm CoreLogic has acquired the “Case-Shiller” brand name from Fiserv, Inc., a move that effectively adds the housing market’s most respected name in home-price analysis to CoreLogic’s ranks.

CoreLogic already publishes its own highly regarded measure of home prices, the Housing Price Index, which the Federal Reserve uses in its economic analyses of the housing market.

The Home Indices Shopping Channel

So what does CoreLogic stand to gain, by acquiring the Case-Shiller brand? Here’s what we know, based on CoreLogic’s statements on the matter:

• CoreLogic will continue to operate its Home Price Index, but will also assimilate the Case-Shiller Indexes into its data offerings, and will rename the latter measure the “CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indexes.”
• Somewhat confusingly, though, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which Standard & Poor’s releases on the last Tuesday of every month, will retain its brand name, and continue to operate on its monthly schedule.

Why This Matters For Agents

Why would all this matter for on-the-ground real estate agents, you may be wondering? Well, for one, as we mentioned before, the Fed uses CoreLogic’s economic data in its own analysis of the housing market, and the Fed, obviously, holds enormous sway over the housing market in its manipulation of lending standards and interest rates.

Also, this now means that CoreLogic will release two monthly home price indexes, both with profoundly different methodologies that explain where home prices are heading. Whereas the CoreLogic HPI is based on repeat sales, and tracks such things as price, time between sales, property type, loan type and distressed sales, the CoreLogic Case-Shiller follows a different path; though still based on repeat sales, it only analyzes data for single-family properties with two or more recorded sales transactions, and focuses on such things as price anomalies, high turnover frequency, time interval adjustments and initial home value, which it aggregates with other data based on Census division, state, metro area, county or ZIP code (if you’re interested in further perspective on the Case-Shiller’s methodology, we’ve written before on some of the possible flaws of the index).

So suffice to say, it’ll be quite interesting see how CoreLogic’s home-price analyses complement – or contradict – one another in the ensuing months, especially with nothing but additional increases in home prices expected in the near future.