Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
The latest figures from Zillow Real Estate Market Report show that home values in the US increased last month to reach an average of $161,600. This is an increase of 0.4% compared to June, and an increase of 6% compared to July last year.
Home values have now risen for 14 consecutive months, and is the first time since August 2006 that yearly increases have hit 6%. Since November 2011, monthly home values have risen more or less consistently apart from just one month. The figures for this July showed that nearly three quarters of the 393 metros covered in the report showed month on month increases, and out of these 303 showed annual increases. The Zillow Report covers the 30 of the largest metro areas in the country, and all of these showed both monthly and yearly increases in July.
Metro areas with the largest annual gains for last month were San Francisco at 27.8%, Las Vegas with gains of 30.8%, while Sacramento showed the largest gain of 33.1%. Zillow is forecasting that home values will increase by another 4.8% over the next 12 months to reach an average of $169,308. Areas expected to show the largest gains include San Francisco, Riverside and Sacramento at 13.25%, 19.2% and 19.6% respectively.
The chief economist for Zillow, Stan Humphries, spoke to Propertywire about these figures, pointing out that the US housing market recovery now seems to be well underway. He also touched on the importance of continuing reforms to the property market so mistakes in the past are not repeated. Decisions made now could help to keep the housing market on solid ground for years to come.
The Zillow Rent Index showed that nationally rents increased in July compared to the previous month, by 0.5%, and that annually rents increased by 1.7%. July also saw good news for the number of completed foreclosures as figures fell to 4.9 homes out of every 10,000 being foreclosed, down from 5.2 the previous month. In July the number of foreclosure sales accounted for 8.7% of the property market, a decrease of 0.7% compared to June, and a drop of 3.4% compared to July last year.
