Housing at the End of 2014: Slowing, and Steadying

Zillow’s 2014 Q3 Real Estate Market Reports focused on a general slowdown we’ve observed across many metro areas nationwide.  In markets experiencing a slowdown we are seeing the following common trends:

• A slowdown in home value appreciation. Home values are still rising, but the pace of annual appreciation has been falling.  Nationally, home value appreciation peaked at 8 percent in April 2014, and has been declining over the past five months.
• Inventory is rising. The number of homes for-sale has been rising since bottoming out in 2013.
• Time on market is rising. The number of days a property spends listed on Zillow has started to rise.
• Price cuts are more prevalent.  The percentage of listings with a price cut in the past month has risen to 37 percent for September 2014, up from 34 percent at the same time last year.
• More homes are selling for below their list price. The sale-to-list-price ratio has fallen below 1 in many formerly very hot areas, meaning that homes are no longer selling above their list prices, on average, and a sign that bidding wars could be an increasingly rare phenomenon.

Use the interactive visual below to see current data for your metro area.