Zillow: So long to $6.1 trillion in home values
Report estimates 18% of homeowners are underwater
By Inman News, Tuesday, February 3, 2009.Online real estate site Zillow today reported that about $6.1 trillion in home values have been washed away since the housing market's peak in 2006.
And about 17.6 percent of all homeowners were underwater -- owing more than their homes were worth -- at the close of 2008, Zillow reported. The data is based on the company's median home-value estimates, dubbed Zestimates, for homes in 161 metro areas.
The estimates include homes for sale and not for sale in a given market area.
U.S. homeowners lost an estimated $3.3 trillion in home values last year alone, according to Zillow, with $1.4 trillion of that coming in the fourth quarter.
Zillow reported that 10.9 percent of real estate transactions in 2008 were short sales, and foreclosure-related properties accounted for about 19.9 percent of all transactions.
More than half of all transactions in the Madera, Merced and Stockton metro areas of California were foreclosures in 2008, while New York City and Grand Junction, Colo., metro areas had the lowest rate of foreclosure -- tying at 3.9 percent of all real estate transactions.
Zillow also reported that the Lincoln, Neb., metro area led the nation with its rate of short-sale transactions -- 14.1 percent of total real estate transactions there were short sales in 2008.
Zillow estimates that 21 of the 161 markets tracked had declining home values in 2008.
Home values dropped an estimated 33.4 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter in Modesto, Calif., Zillow reported, and were down 32.9 percent in Salinas, Calif.; and 31.7 percent in Stockton, Calif. In fact, nine of the 10 metro areas tracked with the highest fourth-quarter year-over-year drop in home values are in California.
Fayetteville, N.C., had the largest gain, at 6.9 percent, followed by Yakima, Wash. (6.2 percent); Utica-Rome (5.3 percent); Bay City, Mich. (3.6 percent), and Oklahoma City (3.5 percent), according to Zillow's estimates.
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Submitted by Gregory Bain on February 3, 2009 - 5:31am.
Zillow may have gotten it right. I am glad to see they have changed their format and gotten rid of the many agent bashing jerks who dominated their site.
As for the price of homes, owners hate it when I tell them the truth. I can point to data sheet after data sheet showing what the house will get showings from interested "real buyers" and what it will net them in dollars. But, they almost always go with an agent who pretends the home is "exceptional" and worth much more.
And, of course, the agent will proceed to "work" them down to the price I told them, or, even lower because they are now "chasing the market".
People want to be lied to.
Gregory Bain, ABR, SRES
Realtor Associate
NJHomes@Ask4Greg.com
Submitted by Jay Thompson on February 3, 2009 - 6:55am.
Curious that this entire article is based on data in a Zillow report and no link to said report is provided.
Here it is for those that want to explore further:
http://www.zillow.com/reports/RealEstateMarketReports.htm
Jay Thompson
Broker / Owner
Thompson's Realty
Blog: www.PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com
.
Submitted by Jerzy (George) Szkup on February 3, 2009 - 4:01pm.
George Szkup
www.DestinationTucson.biz
Interesting - would someone send the link to our Treasury Secretary Gaithner?
Should each one of us send the link to our elected fedaral representative?
George
Submitted by Bill Fooks on February 3, 2009 - 6:08pm.
Bill Fooks
TFT realty Marketing Service
Warwick, RI http://www.fooksteam.com
Zillow should report on how much money is lost everytime you buy a car. You are immediately upside down when driven out of the show room. Then it keeps going down never, ever having a chance to recover. I think zillow should pass this info on. It will certainly pick up car sales. Homes have a chance to go up in value, because they stopped making land a couple of years ago.(I think it was before zillow was invented.) They still make cars today. How exciting. They must be one of the positive thinking, clear headed outfits, I like to join and value their deep thought process.
Submitted by Jay Thompson on February 4, 2009 - 4:58am.
Bill -
The car analogy is interesting. So I guess Case-Shiller and the National Association of Realtors (amongst many others) should stop reporting on home valuations as well?
Jay Thompson
Broker / Owner
Thompson's Realty
Blog: www.PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com
.
Submitted by Scott Farrell on February 9, 2009 - 10:07am.
I would like to know if anyone including staff at Zillow or other online valuations sites have adjusted their algorythym's or other calculations to reflect the quickly changing market. Appraisers in the Charlotte, NC are struggling to put accurate evaluations on specific homes after seeing them. I was wondering what changes have these vendors made to compensate for the fast pace of change.