Raleigh Home Prices Off 2.5% For 4th Quarter

Originally Posted to Triangle Business Journal

Home prices in the Raleigh area dipped by 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter, according to new data from real estate company Zillow.

The median value of a home in the region was $199,365.

At the local market’s peak in the first quarter of 2008, the median price of a home in Raleigh was $209,204. The market has dropped by about 5 percent since then.

Some 61.6 percent of Raleigh-area homes have lost value in the last 12 months, Zillow says. The company estimates that of all home sales, 15 percent involved homes that were sold at a loss.

Foreclosed homes represented 10 percent of all transactions in the Raleigh area, compared to about 20 percent across the country.

Across the U.S., Zillow says, the price of a home dipped by 11.6 percent during 2008. This marks the eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year depreciation.

The number of U.S. homeowners with negative equity, or those who owed more on their homes than the property was worth, rose to 17.6 percent from 14.3 percent in the third quarter.

American homeowners saw $3.3 trillion erased from the value of their real estate in 2008, Zillow says. In the fourth quarter, homeowners lost $1.4 trillion, or 42 percent of the annual total.