Zillow released its' Seattle Real Estate Trends yesterday for the third quarter (July, August, September) of 2008. Their calculations show that Seattle home values have decreased -7.53% compared to the third quarter of 2007. As a point of comparison, home values Nationally decreased -9.7% for the same quarter.
If you click through the links to Click for Seattle values you will find on the left under Seattle, the Excel icon 
. When you click there, you will find 5 tabs at the bottom of the page; "Summary", "Metro Area & County", "City", "Neighborhood", and "Glossary". I found the information shown under City and Neighborhood to be the most interesting, as the value data that Zillow has compiled is broken down to what most Seattle home buyers and Seattle home sellers will find the most interesting; their particular neighborhood or city.
These numbers are "Year over Year" of the "% change for the Zillow Home Value Index or "Zindex" over the last year (12 months)". In other words, Zillows "Zestimate", the median value for homes for in that area, and the percent less value compared to last years' Zestimate median value.
Unlike the Northwest MLS which only uses actual sales data of homes sold through the NWMLS, the Zillow figures use all home sales, then calculates values to all homes, assigns their Zestimates and determines the median value for an area. Which makes this a useful tool for looking at values and comparing them to get an idea of how values increase or decrease over time. However, these percents are not a good way to look at the value of a particular home, just a rough tool for understanding an idea of an areas value relative to last year.
Here are a few cities and neighborhoods of current interest to me as well as my current and recent clients:
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Beacon Hill -8.0%
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Clyde Hill -4.4%
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Columbia City -12.7%
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Magnolia -8.3% (Magnolia is shown twice)
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Magnolia -6.5%
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Mercer Island -6.3%
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Montlake -7.0%
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Normandy Park -5.8%
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Queen Anne -4.7%
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West Seattle -7.4%
Have fun following the links to find the City or neighborhood that interests you!
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