[1]Despite continued housing market recovery, more than a quarter of U.S. homes declined in value over the last year.
Housing market home values are leveling off, but there are still a few markets that are struggling to escape recession times, according to Zillow's August Real Estate Market Report [2].
Homes appreciated 3.3 percent from a year ago, rising to $180,800, Zillow reported. Over the past five months, the national growth rate has leveled off, which implies that the market is normalizing.
In contrast, 27.9 percent of homes depreciated in value in the last year. In addition, prior to the housing market crash, 21.2 percent of homes depreciated in value. Zillow also added, 81.6 percent of homes declined in value in December 2008, the highest amount during the recession.
"We're not going in reverse, but we are hitting the brakes a bit in some markets," said Dr. Svenja Gudell, Zillow's chief economist. "It's easy to say the recession is over when a third of the biggest markets are more expensive now than ever before, but we're still seeing a number of homes losing value. The reality is there are still areas lagging behind in the recovery."
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Zillow also found that East Coast and Midwest markets had the highest share of homes that lost value, as 48.1 percent of Baltimore, Maryland homes depreciated in the last year, 43.4 percent of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania homes depreciated, and 41.2 percent of Washington, District of Columbia homes fell in value.
Even hot markets such as Denver, Dallas, San Jose, and San Francisco, which all saw double-digit home value growth during the last year, felt the chill of depreciating home values. Nearly 2 percent of Denver homes and 4 percent of Dallas homes were worth less in August 2015 than they were a year ago.
The report also determined that rents are still growing faster than home values, providing potential buyers another reason to consider entering the market. According to the Zillow Rent Index, rental prices rose 3.8 percent on an annual basis to $1,381.
Click here [2] to view Zillow’s Real Estate Market Report.