It’s been a tough year for housing, particularly in metro Phoenix. Some new reports sum up the market’s woes in different ways.
The national real-estate website Zillow.com reports that Phoenix-area homes will end up losing $36 billion in value during 2010. At least that’s less than the $48.8 billion the region’s homes depreciated in 2009.
The U.S. housing market is on track to lose $1.7 trillion in value this year, compared with $1 trillion last year. Staggering numbers. Home values in some major metro areas, including Denver, Dallas, Boston and Atlanta, dropped more this year than in 2009.
Zillow estimates the overall value of metro Phoenix homes is $203.4 billion.
Another national real-estate group, CoreLogic, tracks negative equity, which represents homeowners underwater. It estimates that 49 percent of all Arizona homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Nevada leads the nation for negative equity, with approximately 67 percent of the state’s homeowners underwater.
Due to foreclosures, the number of homeowners underwater is declining. Arizona’s rate fell 1.4 percent. Nationally, 22.5 percent of all homeowners are underwater, down from 23 percent during the summer.
This year didn’t start out badly for the housing market. Home sales were hovering near record levels, and prices were up a bit in the spring due to the federal homebuyer tax credit. But, in July, when the credit expired, sales and prices fell. About the same time, it became clear the federal home-loan-modification plan was stalling, and foreclosures started to climb again.
A new report from the Congressional Budget Office shows the U.S. Treasury Department will spend less than one-quarter of the $50 billion pledged to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, mainly through the loan-modification plan.
Foreclosures in metro Phoenix fell in October and November because of Bank of America’s moratorium. But the moratorium expired last week, and housing analysts expect foreclosures to rise again this month and for at least the first few months of 2011 as BofA works through its backlog.
The impact of an increase in foreclosures on home prices will depend on how many of the houses are immediately listed for resale and how lenders price them.
Reach Reagor at catherine .reagor@arizonarepublic.com.