Friday, August 15, 2008

You are Losing Thousands of Dollars of Your Home's Equity!

At least that's what the news media would have you believe.

Look at these statistics of the top and bottom Metropolitan Areas for home appreciation ending March 31, 2008, and tell me how bad you think it is:

Top and Bottom Metropolitan Areas in Home Appreciation

------------- One Year------------ Five Year

Top 5...............8.63%..................54.14%

Bottom 5.......-20.65%..................43.19%

Top 10..............6.31%..................44.97%

Bottom 10......-19.95%..................45.36%

Top 20..............6.13%..................39.30%

Bottom 20......-16.65%..................52.03%


Based on these figures you are better off in the bottom markets then the top markets if you've had your home for a few years.

Let’s look at Indiana (where I live) over the last year our homes have appreciated at 2.24% and over the last 5 year we have appreciated 15.09%.

Would the bottom five cities trade places with us over the last 5 years. Never. How about the bottom ten. No way. What about the bottom 20. Absolutely not!

Here is my point, if you're market is down this year, you are still way ahead of much of the US over the last five years. In fact, if you have owned a home in the worst market (Merced, CA) over the last year you are down 24.68% but over the last five years you are still up 35.78% it would take the average home in Indiana over 10 years to see that kind of an increase.

I think we need to keep our heads and realize that appreciation rates of 20% or more per year are not sustainable over the long term and you will see down turns. But if the attributes that powered the high appreciation are still intact (beach, sun, mountains, ocean) then your market will come back and you will better off than then most of the country.

Keep your chin up and be happy. Better days are right around the corner.

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