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US property prices fell for the 57th consecutive month in March – and showed their biggest fall in three years, according to analysts at Zillow
US house prices dropped by 3% in the first quarter of 2011 – their worst fall in three years, according to housing analysts Zillow.com.
American property prices have declined for 57 consecutive months. Values fell 1% between February and March and 8.2% from March 2010. The cumulative decline in house prices since the market peak in June 2006 is now 29.5%.
A record proportion of homes sold in March (37.7%) went for a loss and negative equity reached a new high – with 28.4% of all single-family homes with mortgages underwater.
Almost the entire country continued to suffer over the first quarter – with Detroit, Atlanta, Ocala in Florida and Pueblo in Colorado the worst hit.
Those lower down the property ladder were hit hardest. Prices in the bottom tier fell 13.9% year-on-year, homes in the middle tier fell 8.7% and homes in the top tier fell 4.3%.
Nearly three-quarters (74.5%) of homes in the US lost value from the first quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011. That was up from the final quarter of 2010, when 69.2% had lost value, but is down substantially from a peak of 85.5% in the first quarter of 2009.
The housing market showed some signs of improvement last year with the rate of decline slowing in some markets. The improvements were spurred by government programmes that gave buyers up to $8,000 (£5,000) in tax credits but the subsidies' impact proved fleeting.
The Zillow figures follow Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Composite 20-City Home Price Index, which showed prices are now 33% below the 2006 peak.
