Zillow believes home values have bottomed out
Sep 20, 2012, 11:05 AM | Updated: Oct 10, 2024, 2:08 pm
Home values in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties have bottomed-out, according to Zillow.com.
The online listing service says Seattle-area home values are up 1.4 percent over last year, and that’s the biggest yearly jump since the housing peak in 2007.
Home values in the area went up slightly in August while prices around the rest of the country went down.
“Home values are so low that affordability is so high that we’re finally getting mainstream buyers off the fence and buying homes again,” Zillow’s chief economist Stan Humphries said.
Despite the good news, the Puget Sound Business Journal reports home values are still down 31 percent compared to their peak in 2007. But Puget Sound is still in the middle of the national pack.
Before you start flipping through vacation home magazines or post a for sale sign, Humphries recommends to do some research because he doesn’t believe we’ll get back to the levels that home values were at prior to the bust.
In fact, he says appreciation will be in the one to three percent per year range for the next two to four years.
“And then we’ll get back to the more normal appreciation rates, which are generally around 2.5 to 5 percent,” says Humphries.
KIRO Radio reporter Chris Sullivan contributed to this report.
