Home Price Declines Slowing

June 7, 2011 (Shirley Allen)

Zillow.com reports that home values in April 2011 fell 0.77 percent compared to March and are 8.0 percent lower than they were in April 2010. That’s the lowest level of month-over-month depreciation since a 0.89 percent decrease recorded between November and December of 2010.

Foreclosure liquidations also fell as 10.0 out of every 10,000 homes in the country was liquidated in foreclosure in April, which is down from 10.2 out of every 10,000 homes experienced in March.

The rate of liquidations is still higher than the rates recorded late last year when the foreclosure liquidation rate in December 2010 was 8.8 out of every 20,000, however, the liquidation rate is substantially lower than the peak rate recorded in October last year when the rate was 11.3 out of every 10,000 homes just before the “robo-signing” controversy emerged.

The number of foreclosure re-sales has also increased drastically from a year ago. Foreclosure re-sales made up 24 percent of all sales in the month of April, which is an increase of 50 percent compared to April 2010 when 16 percent of all transactions consisted of foreclosure re-sales.

April was the tenth consecutive month foreclosure re-sales have increased. The cities of Madera, Merced, and Modesto, all in California, had the highest amount of foreclosure re-sales with 56 percent of all transactions falling into that category.

Of the areas surveyed by Zillow, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Grand Junction had the highest foreclosure rates in April, while the cities with the lowest foreclosure rates for the month were Atlantic City, New York, and Rochester.

Stan Humphries, Chief Economist for Zillow, stated, “In general, current trends are consistent with our earlier expectations of depreciation rates improving in the spring but from absolute levels that are high enough and at a pace that is slow enough that a bottom won’t be reached this year. Key drivers at this point are the pace of foreclosures and improvement in the employment picture.”

Tags: Zillow.com, home values, depreciation, foreclosure liquidations, robo-signing, foreclosure re-sales, foreclosure rates

Sources:
Zillow.com