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30 percent of home owners "under water". Home values will drop another 3-5 percent and stay at that level the next few years.

Zillow just released a devastating third quarter housing report. Basically every major indicator is crashing: * The decline in home values accelerated in September, dropping 0.4% month-over-month * Foreclosures reached an all-time high * A record 23.2% of mortgages are now underwater The double dip -- already a rare phenomenon -- is now entering an unprecedented free-fall. Zillow economist Stan Humphries says prices won't hit bottom until next summer at the earliest, as foreclosure activity grows. Humphries warns: “While not unexpected, the unceasing declines in home values signal that we’re in for a long, bleak winter of continued troubles for...

Zillow: The Housing Double Dip Began In December Joe Weisenthal Feb. 10, 2010, 1:38 PM Stan Humphries, the chief economist at real estate site Zillow.com, declares that the housing double dip began in earnest in December: December brought signs that the fledgling recovery of home values in many markets is slowing again. U.S. home values got a bit lower again in December relative to November levels and the rate of decline got just a little bit higher as well. The national Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) was down 0.21% on a monthly basis in December to $186,200 versus a monthly...

New data suggest that foreclosures are rising in more expensive housing markets. About 30% of foreclosures in June involved homes in the top third of local housing values, up from 16% when the foreclosure crisis began three years ago, according to new data from real-estate Web site Zillow.com. The bottom one-third of housing markets, by home value, now account for 35% of foreclosures, down from 55% in 2006. The report shows that foreclosures, after declining earlier this year, began to accelerate in the late spring and that more expensive homes have more recently accounted for a growing share of all...

Despite signs that the real estate market is bottoming out, millions of homeowners are likely to find themselves in worse shape within the next two years. Nearly half of the nation’s 52 million mortgage borrowers will have negative equity by the end of the first quarter of 2011, up from the 14 million at the end of this year’s first quarter, according to estimates in an Aug. 5 report by Deutsche Bank (DB). With so many borrowers underwater – or owing more on their home than it’s worth – the risk is high that they’ll default and their homes will...

The real estate market received a double shot in the arm this week — and Sumter got its share of the good news. But the reports left some Realtors skeptical. According to the National Association of Realtors, sales of pre-owned homes rose 6.3 percent to 87.7 in December, from an upwardly revised reading of 82.5 in November. That number was higher than December 2007, the report said, when it was 85.9. The index for 2008 as a whole was 87.1. According to another report compiled by Zillow.com, a Web site that tracks nationwide real estate statistics, home prices are holding...

Arizona regulators have ordered a Seattle-based online home price estimator to stop doing business in the state. The Arizona Board of Appraisal issued two cease-and-desist letters to the company that operates the popular real estate Web site Zillow, saying it needs an appraiser license to offer its "zestimates" in Arizona. "It is the board's feeling that (Zillow) is providing an appraisal," Deborah Pearson, the board's executive director, said Friday. Zillow warns users the estimates it provides are not a definitive value but a starting point for consumers. Launched in February, 2006, the company claims it has 4 million users a...

Zillow is getting a lot of buzz. The site, which provides free estimates of home values, got big writeups yesterday at Cnet and the New York Times as well as a ton of echo coverage in the blogosphere. The company has also scored $32 million in venture financing. I love the idea of Zillow. Opening up the supply of data about real estate puts a dent in the Realtor cartel, and anything that weakens that price-fixing monopoly is to be welcomed. Zillow's site itself looks good, too. It assembles all sorts of information on house specs and prices as well...

A new site promises sophisticated home valuations and -- one day -- an end to 6% commissions. NEW YORK (MONEY) - Say "goodbye" to appraisers -- and possibly real estate agents. At least that's the promise of Zillow.com, launched Wednesday, which is headed by the founder of Internet travel company Expedia........... Plug in an address and you get a price. You can even pull back to a satellite photo of a particular street, complete with price estimates for every house on the block. Those price guesses, which the branding-savvy Zillow folks call a "Zestimate," take into account the size of...