U.S. Homeowners Lost Over 3 trillion in Home Value in 2008

Just call it a record year for U.S. homeowners — a distinction they do not want to repeat. Zillow.com announced a few days ago, that U.S. homeowners lost an astounding $3.3 trillion in home value in 2008, as the worst slump in the residential real estate segment intensified amid the U.S. recession. Further, homeowners lost $1.4 trillion in value in Q4 2008. In 2007, homeowners lost $1.3 trillion in value. Further, the median home price based on data collected by Zillow.com plummeted 11.6% to $192,119 in 2008. Meanwhile, the percentage of homeowners with no home equity or negative equity (mortgage balances > than the home values) increased to 17.6% in Q4 2008 from 14.3% in Q3 2008.

Also, real estate equity has declined $6.1 trillion — or by a value equal to about 40% of the U.S.’s roughly $14 trillion economy since home values peaked in Q2 2006. Property values have declined for eight consecutive quarters and economist Peter Dawson told BloggingStocks Tuesday it doesn’t take an MIT mathematician to figure out why they have. “In retrospect, we can now see that there was a large amount of speculation and a massive overbuild in housing. Add the bursting of that bubble to the rise in foreclosures resulting from the long recession and you have a recipe for large home price declines, which is what we’ve seen these past two years,” Dawson said.

What is the key to ending the slide in home values? “End the rise in foreclosures by creating jobs in the economy. It’s very hard for foreclosure rates to decline amid large job losses,” Dawson said. The U.S. economy lost more than 2.6 million jobs in 2008 and unemployment has risen to 7.2%, the nation’s highest jobless rate in 16 years.

A major, national mortgage refinance program for at-risk homeowners would also help put a floor under housing prices, Dawson added, and the Obama administration is currently considering a plan whereby the government would guarantee mortgage loans and insure mortgage modification plans that fall under this federal mortgage relief program extended by participating mortgage lenders. Article was written by Joseph Lazzaro.