According to the June Zillow Real Estate Market Report, 50.4 percent of American homes are now valued higher than they were before the 2008 recession. 21 of 35 markets nationwide are at the milestone value, while home prices were up 8.3 percent over last year and the national median home price rose to $217,300.
While this news has many homeowners across the country celebrating their renewed equity, Zillow’s chief economist Aaron Terrazas points out that the recovery is uneven across the country. He explains, “Even a decade after the 2008 financial crisis, and five-plus years into the recovery, it’s clear that the housing boom and bust was felt very differently in various markets – and it still being felt today in many. In markets like Las Vegas that got farthest ahead of themselves during the boom, and consequently fell the most, a large majority of homes are still not worth as much today as they were a decade ago – but markets like Denver that were more stable a decade ago, many more homes are worth more now that ever before.”
Looking to the percentage of homes that are valued at or above their pre-recession peak nationwide, it is clear that some markets have bounced back more easily than others. For example, 99.6 percent of homes in Denver have reached this benchmark, while several cities in Texas have also seen a nice rebound, including Austin (98.7), Dallas-Forth Worth (97.7), and San Antonio (98.8). However, there are also cities whose trends more closely mirror the slow recovery in Las Vegas, including Orlando (5.4%) and Baltimore (8.7%).
Terrazas concludes, “Despite widespread and consistent home value growth today, the scars of the recession still run deep for millions of longer-term US homeowners, and it may take years of growth for their home to regain the value lost a decade ago.”