According to the second-quarter real estate market report from Zillow, the property market in the United States may finally be showing signs of heading towards stabilisation.
Although property prices have fallen by an average of 6.2% in the majority of markets, these falls have been slowing, with the last quarter showing just a 0.4% decline, the smallest for more than four years.
Some property markets are showing price increases, and negative equity has declined slightly. However economists are predicting that the bottom of the market won't be realised until next year due to the high numbers of foreclosures and continuing uncertainty over the economy.
Overall property prices have fallen by around 28% since their peak in June 2006, and the average property costs $171,600. The rate of foreclosures is gradually declining, as in March it reached a peak of 21.4% of all sales, while in June this figure fell to 19.7%.
Although property experts acknowledge this is good news they are still cautious about the future, and feel the road to recovery will not be particularly smooth. This is due to the fact that there are still a lot of foreclosures in the pipeline, and many people still have high levels of negative equity which could put their homes at risk in the future.
Some property markets have now shown two consecutive quarters of appreciation, and these include Washington DC where property prices increased 0.2% through to the first quarter of the year, and 1.7% through the second quarter. In the Pittsburgh prices increased 0.1% through the first quarter of the year and 2.8% through the second quarter.
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