Home values in Maple Leaf may have dropped 4.8% in the past year, but at least the neighborhood is faring better than the metropolitan Seattle area as a whole, which saw values drop 5.9% from the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010, according to Zillow’s real estate market reports.
On a month-to-month basis, Maple Leaf home values dropped 0.5% from February to March, while they dropped 0.8% for the city as a whole. And with 24.5% of Seattle homeowners “underwater” on their mortgages, which means they owe more than their homes are now worth, it may seem like the market will never hit bottom.
But the bottom may just be around the corner. The market reports also show signs that home values are back on the rise in cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, which were hit much earlier by the housing crisis.
And although Seattle was one of the later cities to see home values begin to plummet, they also haven’t fallen as far as in some other cities. How long do you think it will take for Maple Leaf home values to begin increasing again?