PHILADELPHIA PA – Homes in the greater Philadelphia market, including those in western Montgomery County, are anticipated to have lost $1.6 billion in cumulative value during 2012, according to an analysis of Zillow® Real Estate Market Reports released Wednesday (Dec. 19, 2012).
As bad as that news might be, Zillow said, 2011 – when Philadelphia market homes lost $28.9 billion cumulatively – was far worse. Consider the year-over-year gain heartening, company Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries said. “After a sluggish 2011, the housing market really turned a corner in 2012, as historic affordability and sustained investor interest helped keep demand at a boil.”
Zillow is a provider of real estate information that includes statistics about homes, real estate listings and mortgages through online and mobile applications. Among the 30 largest metro areas covered by its analysis, only Philadelphia failed to record an annual gain in cumulative home values. The rest showed value gains of between $1.3 billion (Cincinnati OH) and $122.1 billion (Los Angeles CA).
Its press release gave no specific reason for Philadelphia’s failure to break into positive value territory.
Gains were calculated by measuring the difference between cumulative home values as of the end of 2011 and anticipated cumulative home values at the end of 2012.
Overall, Zillow noted, U.S. homes will have gained approximately $1.35 trillion in cumulative value during full-year 2012, to a total of approximately $23.7 trillion, up 6 percent from the end of 2011. By comparison, cumulative home values nationwide during 2011 fell almost $792 billion from 2010.
It expects value gains to continue into 2013, the company added. “As home values rise, and more homeowners are freed from negative equity, we can expect a continued slow transition to a more normal housing environment, driven by local market fundamentals and conditions,” Humphries said.
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