Four Arizona metro areas rank in top 20 nationwide for home value losses

05-27-2011 • eastvalleytribune.com

Home values continue to collapse in Arizona, to the point where four of the state's metro areas now rank in the top 20 nationwide for losses. New figures Wednesday from the Federal Housing Finance Agency show the price of the average home sold in the state in the first quarter of this year slid another 2.8 percent from the prior quarter. That brings the year-over-year decline to 12.2 percent. The numbers are based on data from repeat sales of the same houses. Only Idaho fared worse on an annual basis. It also means that someone who paid $200,000 for a home five years ago would get, on average, just $107,540 for the same property now. And homes are selling for what they were in 2002. In a separate set of numbers for individual communities monitored by the FHFA, the agency computes out not just the prices that homes are selling for but also how much those which are not being sold are worth. That latter figure comes from data of what homes appraise for when people refinance their mortgages. It is this list where Arizona communities score at the top - or, as the case may be, bottom - of the list. The Phoenix metro area, which includes Maricopa and Pinal counties, ranked No. 5 with an 11.6 percent drop in the home price index in the last year. That includes a drop of nearly 4.9 percent in the last quarter alone. Yuma County was right behind in sixth place with an annualized decrease in value of almost 10.9 percent, including a 4.2 percent quarterly decline. Homes in Yavapai County slid another 9.8 percent in value. And Pima County, which came in at the 20th largest annual decline, posted an 8.7 percent year-over-year drop with a 4.8 percent decline in values in just the last quarter. Other Arizona counties measured include Coconino where values slid 7.7 percent from the same time last year, with a 7.5 percent drop in Mohave County.