Many say that housing is the key to our financial recovery and it is certainly central to the Real Esate market. So let us read the tea leaves, both past, present and future.

According to the leading real estate website Zillow.com’s first-quarter 2009 Real Estate Market Reports, which encompass 161 metropolitan areas and cover the value changes in all homes, not just homes that have recently sold – reports that more than one in five homeowners underwater. Additionally, home values in the

And that is not all. Check out all the devil in this detail and explore this ugly housing soup:

• U.S. home values posted a year-over-year decline of 14.2 percent, resulting in a total 21.8 percent drop since the market peaked in 2006,
• U.S. homes lost $704 billion in value during the first quarter and have depreciated $3.8 trillion in the past 12 months.
• Declining home values left 21.9 percent of all American homeowners with negative equity by the end of the first quarter 2009.
• By comparison, 17.6 percent of all homeowners owed more on their mortgage than their property was worth in the fourth quarter of 2008, and 14.3 percent were underwater in the third quarter of last year.
• Of all transactions is the past 12 months, 20.4 percent were foreclosures, up slightly from 19.9 percent in the fourth quarter, while 11.9 percent of homes sold were short sales, also up slightly from 10.9 percent in the fourth quarter, the reports showed.
• Nine consecutive quarters of declines have left eight regions — including the Modesto, California, Stockton, California, and Fort Myers, Florida regions — with median value declines of more than 50 percent since those markets peaked.
• In 85 of the 161 markets covered in the report, the annualized change over the past five years is negative or flat.
• But in an early sign of improvement, 17 metropolitan areas across the country — notably several hard-hit markets in California, including Los Angeles, San Diego and Modesto — have seen two or more consecutive quarters of smaller year-over-year declines in home values, the reports showed.
• Meanwhile, potential sellers appear to be holding back until evidence of an improved housing market. In a separate survey of homeowner sentiment, nearly one-third, or 31 percent, of homeowners said they would be at least somewhat likely to put their homes on the market in the next 12 months if they saw signs of a recovering real estate market, the reports showed.

Tags: Economic Recovery, Housing Under Water 1st Quarter 2009; Housing Trends

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