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Home values plummeted more in the first quarter of this year than they have in any quarter since 2008, according to ""Zillow's"":http://www.zillow.com first quarter Real Estate Market Report.
[IMAGE] [COLUMN_BREAK]The Zillow Home Value Index fell 3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010 and declined 8.2 percent year-over-year to $169,600. Home values have fallen 29.5 percent since they peaked in June 2006.
Negative equity reached a new high mark, with 28.4 percent of single-family homeowners having mortgages underwater at the end of the first quarter - up from 27 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010.
The first quarter has forced Zillow to revise its forecast to predict a bottom of the housing crisis in 2012, at the earliest. ""Home-value declines are currently equal to those we experienced during the darkest days of the housing recession,"" says Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow. ""With accelerating declines during the first quarter, it is unreasonable to expect home values to return to stability by the end of 2011. We did expect substantial payback from the home buyer tax credits, which buoyed the housing market last year, but underlying demand post-tax credit, as well as rising foreclosures and high negative equity rates, make it almost certain that we won't see a bottom in home values until 2012 or later.""
