The Real Estate Deal

Editor Cindy Zetts dishes on real-estate and development around Puget Sound: She lived in apartments, townhomes and houses -- a dozen of them in four states -- before settling in the Seattle area in 1997. After taking a bath on the sale of her first home, in South Florida, she vowed to wise up about real estate. She bought a house in Covington 10 years ago because, well, she could afford one there.

E-mail | Subscribe |Blog Home

August 12, 2008 4:02 PM

Shocking news (not): Seattle-area real-estate market better than U.S. as a whole, Zillow says

Posted by Cindy Zetts

Zillow's latest report, on second-quarter home sales, breaks down the market by price range, type of home (house vs. condo), MSA (metropolitan statistical area), county, city, ZIP code and neighborhood and looks at homeowners' equity, market trends (where we are in comparison with the peak) and distress signals.

A story by The Associated Press looks at U.S. numbers, but because real estate markets are local and the U.S. market is dragged down by terrible markets in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, we need to look at local numbers for a more accurate picture of our market.

Here's a look at a few interesting tidbits from this data crunch:

-- Year-over-year value change ranges 14.4 percent higher (Medina) to 14.5 percent lower (Duvall).

-- The Bridle Trails neighborhood in Kirkland saw its 5-year annualized value change by 12.1 percent.

-- Marketwide, 73.8 percent of homes lost value in the past quarter; 86.3 percent in the past 12 months.

Check out the detailed report here.

Digg | Newsvine