Home values in the Baltimore metro area depreciated 2.8 percent during the fourth quarter of last year, and 1.4percent from the same quarter a year before, falling to an average of $291,928, according to a report released this week by a national real estate tracking service.
The data were compiled by Zillow.com, a real estate data service that last month expanded to include the Baltimore area. The company?s report includes data on all homes, not just those that have recently been sold or listed for sale.
Single-family home values averaged $298,359 last quarter, down 3.1 percent from the third quarter and 1.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, according to the report. Condominium prices averaged $247,450, down 2.1 percent from the third quarter and 0.1 percent from 2006.
The overall 2.8 percent decline in home value includes duplexes and other types of homes that never saw big price increases several years ago and aren?t seeing big drops now, moderating the overall number, according to Zillow spokeswoman Amanda Hoffman.
“It?s not too dramatic when you?re looking at the overall picture,” she said.
Local homebuyers last year made a median down payment of 5 percent and own 8 percent of their homes, according to the report.
Homeowners with negative equity, who owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth, comprise 24.9 percent of last year?s buyers in the Baltimore area but just 0.1 percent of those who bought a home five years ago, according to the report.
“Longtime homeowners have done pretty well,” Hoffman said. “The people who purchased at the peak of the market and there?s been some depreciation, they?re slipping into negative equity.”
But that statistic may not just be the product of the current downturn in the housing market, said Bill Cassidy, a Realtor with Long and Foster Fells Point.
“It takes at least two years in an average market, a so-called normal market, to recover those closing costs in your equity,” he said.
