Where did housing's 'double dip' go?

"In a welcome shift from recent months, this month is better than last -- April's numbers beat March. However, the seasonally adjusted numbers show that much of the improvement reflects the beginning of the Spring-Summer home buying season. It is much too early to tell if this is a turning point or simply due to some warmer weather. For a real recovery we would need to see several months of increasing home prices, large enough to shift the annual momentum to the positive side. In short, better news, but still a lot of questions and a long way to go."

Magically, the mainstream media (except Bloomberg) totally forgot about seasonal adjustment for this (and only this) housing report. Why? Because if you ignore seasonality, then you could make a (questionable) case that housing was "up" for the month. Otherwise, it was down: both given the usual seasonal trend, and year-over-year. The latter, of course, is the way to look at it with no questionable adjustments. But then one definitely has to admit housing is still down.

If that bothers you, then you'd better not think about what prices would be year-over-year inflation adjusted.