Happy New Year!  Here's some good news/bad news fron the National Housing Market Scene.  As far as for the Twin Cities, the numbers aren't in yet for December, but I do expect the median price to be lower than a year ago.  Pending sales thru 12/24/11 though were 30.1% ahead of Last Year for the previous 3 months.  So that is GOOD NEWS here! 

Home Values Decline at Slower Pace in 2011
The year-end news on U.S. home values is a mix of good and bad, according to Zillow. U.S. homes are expected to have lost more than $681 billion in value during 2011, but that is 35 percent less than the $1.1 trillion lost in 2010, and the total losses in 2011 are smaller than the prior four years. The bulk of the lost value took place during the first six months of the year when U.S. homes lost $454 billion. From July to December, Zillow projects residential home value losses may total $227 billion.

The majority of markets surveyed (92 percent) showed home value losses in 2011, and only nine of the 128 markets showed gains. New Orleans posted the largest gain with $3.5 billion followed by Pittsburgh with a gain of $2.7 billion. Meanwhile, larger metro areas like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago experienced the biggest home value losses of $75 billion, $44.8 billion and $41.7 billion, respectively. 

"While homeowners suffered through another year of steep losses, the good news is that homes are losing value at a substantially slower pace as the market works its way toward the bottom,” says Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries. “Unfortunately, when we look ahead to next year, the unabsorbed pool of housing supply, dragging levels of consumer confidence, high unemployment and negative equity will continue to put downward pressure on the housing market, pushing our expectation for a potential recovery into late 2012 or early 2013.”

CRS Member Connect  Fri, Dec 30, 2011