Posted on 09/21/2007 8:14:20 AM PDT by Hydroshock
More Americans Say Value Of Their Home Has Fallen Topics:Housing | Real Estate | Consumers | Economy (U.S.)By Reuters | 21 Sep 2007 | 10:48 AM ET Font size: A record 26% of U.S. homeowners say the value of their homes has fallen during the past year, above the previous peak of 24% seen in 1992, a survey released Friday showed.
Reflecting the extent of the prolonged housing slump, 21% of homeowners polled in September expect the value of their home to decline in the year ahead, up from 18% in August, according to the data from Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.
"Overall, the data indicate no let-up in the slump in home prices," said Richard Curtin, director of the consumer surveys, in a statement.
While the Federal Reserve's half-percentage-point interest rate cut Tuesday would help homeowners whose mortgage rates are about to reset, shrinking home values and tougher credit requirements would overwhelm the positive impact from cash-out refinancing in the coming year, according to Curtin.
Homeowners in the western United States, where some of the most dramatic home appreciation had occurred, have been especially hard hit by the real estate downturn
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
This is one of those idiotic stories that makes it sound like people haven’t made money on their real estate purchases. I bought my house in 2000 and while my value peaked in late 2005, true it has fallen, but still far ahead of what I purchased for in 2000.
It’s all relative to the timing.
Do these folks have their houses appraised every 20 minutes, or are they just reacting to the hysteria dealers?
For me the drop in home values has been a blessing. I don’t plan to sell my home anytime soon and high values just drive up my property taxes. This year I was able to protest to the county the appraisal value of my home and got the appraisal value lowered significantly, which in turn lowered my property taxes significantly.
The taxman says the value of my home and the entire region has risen several percent. This means the generality is false in detail. Once the Natural Gas Pipeline deal has fallen through again and Democrats fill all pertinent offices a little over a year from now, this will become a ghosttown. But, for now we don’t care what they are doing Outside.
Well, I know my home’s value has gone down, but it’s more because the neighborhood has gone all to he!!. If I sold now, I would be lucky to recoup the purchase price I paid back in 1989. More likely, the home will sell for a lot less than that. If the house was in a better neighborhood, I could probably get a heckuva lot more.
That is correct. Housing was overpriced before and the market is making its natural correction.
>> This is one of those idiotic stories that makes it sound like people haven’t made money on their real estate purchases.
Its also dumb because it says people “say the value has fallen” ... it doesn’t say the value has ACTUALLY fallen. Its another public opinion survey about a factual issue ... and is mostly a demonstration of the apocalyptic media coverage surrounding home values, rather than the actual value of homes.
H
You have NO real way of knowing the value of a home until you sign the sales contract. Everything up ‘til then is wild a$$ed speculation.
The exact same scenario as me. The market has cooled and demand is down. That said, I’m still in really great shape, equity-wise. If housing prices around here drop 30%, then I’ll be concerned.
I bought my house in 1989. Even with the recent decline, it has still tripled in value.
Not according to property tax appraisers.
Of course, that’s just a backend way to raise taxes and is not tied to actual market value in many communities.
Really, fallen huh... more like the house prices were artificially inflated, and now they are coming back down to more sensible prices...
I mean I like at my house and it’s decent, but the market value is ludicrous...
Where do you live?
My home hasn’t fallen in value. In fact, according to the county I live in, it is worth about 20K more than I could sell it for. :)
Personally, I don’t mind being taxed less to live in my home.
But they will. And the courthouse auctions will start up again.
We have seen it all before.
BUMP
What backwoods den do you live in? Even in the GHETTO, housing values tripled over the past 10 years in NY/NJ.
I feel the ame way. This old house we live in has gone up
and down in value over the 30 years it took us to pay for it. But I don’t care other than for tax reasons. It served it’s purpose well by providing a home for our kids to grow up in and I don’t care what it is worth because it was to be a home and not looked at as an investment.
Now it is all ours(and of course the tax man’s) and nobody is going to take it away except the aforementioned tax man if I give him the opportunity.
That is the same for Travis county. Our appraisal has been going up every year. All the home values in our area have been going up. Real estate prices have increased the same % for comparable sized homes in the same locality.
Last year, our "land value" tripled from previous years. This year, the land value dropped over half, but the "improvements" increased again. We paid slightly less in taxes, but the appraisal is still higher.
Boo-hoo. The value has fallen out of the stratosphere.
So. Is it a home, or an investment? Some people gripe even when they have a roof over their heads. Maybe, they would rather sleep in the street.
Too bad everything has been given a dollar amount, including dirt.
I have a similar problem. My part of town used to be pretty nice, but over the last 10 years the demographics have changed and the crime rate rose. The final straw was the large influx of Katrina refugees into this area. According to my insurance agent, the area that I live in has the highest crime rate in the state of Texas! There is an unprecedented number of for-sale signs in my neighborhood as people flee like rats off a sinking ship. The tax appraisals are definitely higher than actual property values. Yeah, tell me my house has not lost value!
“A record 26% of U.S. homeowners say the value of their homes has fallen during the past year, above the previous peak of 24% seen in 1992, a survey released Friday showed. Reflecting the extent of the prolonged housing slump,”
Following one of the longest and strongest run-ups in housing sales and values (national averages). Things go up, and up and up...until they go down. It’s not rocket science.
I live near Pittsburgh in a small suburb about 5 or so miles out of town. Principally a blue collar area at one time, but now very poor for the most part — lots of Section 8 housing and projects (our government at work). Mostly seniors and people on public assistance. My house is in pretty good shape, but I’m surrounded by rentals (absentee landlords) and Section 8 housing. And they are a mess. I was born and raised in that neighborhood — had lived in another part of Pittsburgh for a time — but moved back in 1989 to be closer to my parents. Now they are both gone, I’d like to sell, but....
A few streets over from me — some friends of my parents built a house about 10 or so years ago. Beautiful home. Two or three years ago, with their children grown, the couple decided to have their home appraised, with an eye toward selling it. They were told that, had the house been located in a much better neighborhood, they would get maybe $500,000 or more. In my neighborhood, if you get maybe $60,000 for a relatively new home, you take the money and run. I bought my house for $40,000 back in 1989. If I get half that, I’ll be lucky.
I’ve seen and heard of this before, of course, but are you truly serious? You paid 40k twenty years ago, and you feel as if you’d be lucky to get 20K? Jimminy!!! That’s REAL bad.
I don’t have the Katrina refugees, but I do have the crime. Can’t even sit outside in the summer — I hear gunfire most nights somewhere in the neighborhood. I blame government for scruing up a really nice neighborhood. Even people on low or fixed incomes used to take care of their homes. I can remember a time when even the housing projects were kept tidy. Not anymore. Trash everywhere (people and objects). An “I don’t give a chit” attitude set in and it just filtered down to everyone. I keep my home in fairly good shape, but there are times when I just want to abandon the place, move and leave no forwarding address, then let the borough condemn the property and tear down the home...another vacant lot.
Home values have fallen? Shouldn’t there be a law against that?
I’m so glad I bought my house in close-in Arlington, VA, six years ago. As I look at declining home values in many markets across the US, I find also (as recently as yesterday) that home sale prices in my zip code continue to climb — up 18 percent over the last year. The average home sales price in my zip code is now just under one million dollars.
How come we’ve avoided the mess so many other localities are in? I think it’s not just that Washington has steady, government-based employment, but also that my neighborhood is within walking distance of a Metro subway station. In traffic-choked Washington, that one feature commands a price premium that shocks people new to the area. As a federal government employee, it’s a feature I use daily!
Mines gone up around 35% since I purchased it in 2000.
Exactly, my situation mirrors yours, except I didn’t see a drop off at all. Its still going up from everything I’m seeing and hearing here in Southern Ohio.
The value of my home has fallen as well ... in the eyes of other people. It’s still my home and a it’s rated at one good place to live. I’m not planning to sell it in the next decade so I guess I’m golden.
When home prices rise the media moan that no one can afford a home. When prices fall, the media whine that houses have lost value!
Prices go up, prices go down.
Perhaps the media really are longing for a controlled economy in which the government controls all prices and no one has anything and everyone is miserable.
I have a cousin and her family who live in Alexandria, VA. I remember when they bought their home 30 or so years ago, they thought $69,000 was a lot of money (here in the ‘burgh, you could get a decent home for a lot less then). The house is located in a plan of homes...when they bought the place, besides the other homes in the plan, there was just about nothing else around — a lot of wooded area. But over the last 30 years or so, the whole surrounding area has been developed — a new shopping center, a new middle school and newer plans of home, among other things. The first plan of homes (actually condominums) built across the road from the entrance to my cousin’s plan sold initially for $100,000. They are now at minimum $600,000, maybe more. I’m going to guess that even though my cousin’s home is old by comparison, she and her husband could sell it for at least that much, maybe more.
LLS
You sound like a good person. There must be some way for you to escape.
Thanks. I can escape — I just know that whatever I do, it will be at a loss.
Ah, it will be a FINANCIAL loss, but the ability to sit on one’s porch at the close of a summer’s day, enjoying, perhaps, a bit of alcohol and/or tobacco is worth a pretty penny, as I’m sure you know.
Priceless actually.
Sad...never realized how important it was to be able to sit out on the porch or walk around my neighborhood without fear until such “amenities” eroded away. Should have seen it coming. Some people were smart to get out while they could. I waited too long.
Same thing happened in 1990, and again around 1998. Housing values are cyclical. They’ll go up again, and the only folks who will be hurt by this are the ones who bought their homes at the HIGH of the market, two years ago, and are going to have to sell their homes during this cyclical low. If you don’t HAVE to sell, you shouldn’t have to worry. Values will rise again in the next year or so.
That's a terrific feature! Our #1 son bought a condo in Somerville MA when he got his first job. Turns out, they're planning a Metro stop about a block from his house! It's gonna be terrific when the thing gets built. Condos near Metro stops generally sell for $20K - $30K more, all other things being equal.
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