Baltimore-area home values
So yeah, I know I inundated you with housing-market statistics this weekend, but hey -- what's a few more?
Zillow.com released new figures today that attempt to measure all home values in the spring, not just the prices of properties that sold. (That's different than my analysis, which relied on sales figures.) Here's some of what the real estate search site says about the Baltimore area:
1) Prices fell 5 percent compared with a year ago in the metro area overall ...
2) ... but that varied a lot, from a 7.5 percent increase in Stevensville (Queen Anne's County) to a 15.5 percent drop in Jessup (Howard and Anne Arundel counties).
3) Twelve communities had rising home values compared with a year earlier ...
4) ... but not all homes there were worth more at the end of the second quarter, just as not all homes in the fastest-declining places were worth less, Zillow says.
Zillow bases these conclusions off its "Zestimates" of home values, which have drawn criticism from various fronts (including from some of you). If you're in the anti-Zestimate camp, enjoy these sales-only stats from Zillow's report:
2) Ten percent of homes sold were bank-owned -- that is, foreclosure resales.
3) The typical sale price per square foot across the Baltimore metro area: $166.
How does this match up with your sense of the market?
Nationally, home-value declines have slowed, Zillow says, but that comes with a caveat:
"There is a large unknown on the horizon ... as these second quarter numbers are still heavily influenced by the federal homebuyer tax credits, which were available for homes under contract by the end of April," Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries said in a statement. "Home sales are declining significantly in the post-tax credits environment, but the impact of falling home sales on already-declining home values is yet to be seen."
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