With all of the talk about a housing bottom, I thought I would point out a small little statistic that the media continues to overlook...home values are still falling. And they are still falling in all four regions that the NAR tracks.
Specifically, the median home value fell by -15.0% in the Northeast, -5.9% in the Midwest, -7.1% in the South, and -28% in the West.
According to the most recent NAR existing home sales report, the national median home value fell -15.1% from July of 2008 to July of 2009.
Here is what the year over year percentage change in the median home value has looked like over the past several months according to the NAR:
Jun 2008: -6.1%
Jul 2008: -7.1%
Aug 2008: -9.5%
Sep 2008: -9.0%
Oct 2008: -11.3%
Nov 2008: -13.2%
Dec 2008: -15.3%
Jan 2009: -14.8%
Feb 2009: -15.5%
Mar 2009: -12.4%
Apr 2009: -15.4%
May 2009: -16.8%
Jun 2009: -15.4%
Jul 2009: -15.1%
While the argument can be made that the "pace" of home value declines is slowing, and there are plenty of people who will try to make that argument, those same people need to also account for the fact that the pace of foreclosure filings just set a new record in July, according to RealtyTrac. The trend is for deeper and prolonged property value declines in the absence of a real housing stimulus.
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