First-time homebuyers who rushed to take advantage of the government’s $8,000 tax credit before it expired last year have already lost nearly twice that much to falling property values, according to Smart Money. The tax credit program, which was in place between January 2009 and April 2010, prompted a surge in activity in the U.S. housing market (and later a drop-off, after the program expired). But according to the Zillow Home Value Index, which released its data for March this week, home prices have fallen by an average of $15,000 over the last year, and $20,000 since two years ago, meaning that those who got $8,000 credits have actually lost money. [more]

In the first three months of 2011 nationwide home values declined 3 percent quarter-over-quarter, the largest drop since the depths of the recession in 2008, and it’s anybody’s guess how far they’ll ultimately fall, according to a Zillow.com report cited by Marketplace. Zillow.com’s report indicated prices are down 29.5 percent since June 2006 and would continue to fall until at least 2012. Marketplace attributes the decline to the difficulty Americans are facing obtaining financing and the heftier down payments financial institutions now require so as not to get “burned” again. [more]

Zillow.com has released a new product called Rent Zestimates, which
determines the estimated monthly rent for more than 90 million homes and
apartments across the United States. “Buyers and renters are not
exclusive categories — many people are considering both options when
shopping for a new home,” Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff said in a
statement. “We created Rent Zestimates to empower people with
information and data to make the right real estate decision for them.”
According to Zillow.com, a recent survey shows two-thirds of current
renters didn’t research fair rent prices before signing their leases. [Sun
Sentinel]

From the South Florida website: Cash deals are taking over South Florida’s real estate market, as around
54 percent of home purchases in the tri-county area are all-cash deals,
according to a real estate analysis by Zillow.com. In the boom, just 13
percent of South Florida’s home sales were paid in cash. South Florida
had the highest percentage of cash deals in the fourth quarter among 11
major metropolitan areas in the country in Zillow.com’s analysis.
[more]

Picky, picky, picky! Are today’s first-time homebuyers passing up great deals because they insist on flawless “move-in ready” houses requiring little or no changes — even at the starter-home price levels where shoppers traditionally have been willing to factor future fix-ups and renovations into their offers? Or are they simply reflecting market realities? They see record inventories of houses sitting unsold, they’ve got plenty to choose from and they may not have the money, time or inclination to do fix-ups after making the purchase. [more]

Home values are falling in many cities across the United States, including New York, which saw a 5.1 percent drop in prices, according to the Wall Street Journal’s latest quarterly survey of housing market conditions. The survey found that prices declined in all of the 28 major metropolitan areas tracked during the fourth quarter of 2010 when compared to a year earlier. As the number of unsold homes increased, inventory levels rose in many markets, particularly in Long Island, which had enough homes on the market at the end of December to last 15 months at the average sales pace. The supply of unsold homes stood at 14 months in Charlotte, N.C., and Nashville, Tenn., and at nearly 13 months for northern New Jersey. Comments

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From L: two Greenwich, Conn. mansion pools, which came in second and third place on Zillow’s top 10 list

While Greenwich, Conn. has been more slushy than sunny lately, two of the town’s biggest mansion-owners are having no problem taking the occasional dip: Greenwich is home to two of the top 10 most sumptuous indoor pools, as ranked by Zillow.com. The first of the two sits inside a $42.5 million mansion and features a mechanical, retractable mosaic tile covering. The other to crack the top 10 list, a lap pool inside a $17.95 million home, features a tuscan motif. But while these two aquatic facilities came in at second and third place, respectively, they were trumped by a Malibu, Calif. pool, which was used during the filming of HBO’s original series “True Blood.” [Zillow] [more]

From the January issue: The real estate data website Zillow.com has launched a new program that allows clients to rank and review real estate agents on a one-to-five scale in categories like “local knowledge,” “process expertise” and “responsiveness.” While Zillow is keeping the rankings relatively quiet as they cull more reviews from users, the feature is familiar territory for Zillow: The site’s Mortgage Marketplace, which allows borrowers to review lenders, has a database of roughly 6,500 user reviews. Amy Bohutinsky, vice president of marketing with Zillow, said that she’s optimistic the feature could be a boon for top agents. “For good agents, public reviews and endorsements by past clients can be a powerful tool to grow their business,” Bohutinsky said of the feature. [more]

From left: Sandra Bullock, Sarah Palin, Charlie Sheen and the cast of MTV’s “Jersey Shore”

The results of Zillow’s annual celebrity neighbor survey are in, and America’s (literal) girl next door is actress Sandra Bullock. More than one quarter of those surveyed said they’d most like to have the Academy Award-winning single mom as their neighbor. The cast of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” was picked by 26 percent of those surveyed as the least desirable neighborhood addition of 2010, even beating out drunk-driving Mel Gibson and Plaza Hotel room-destroyer Charlie Sheen. TRD [more]

CNBC’s Diana Olick talks about the best and worst local markets for 2011 in the video above. If investors want to buy, hold and rent out a home, the best places to buy, based on five metrics — price-income ratio, price-rent ratio, price declines, foreclosure rates, foreclosure resales include Poughkeepsie, NY, Harftord, Conn., and Pittsburgh, Penn. “Markets like Hartford and Pittsburgh are on that list because they’re about on par now so they’ve returned back down to their levels of affordability before the housing run-up,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow. In Hartford, he added, “about 10 percent of monthly transactions are foreclosure resales.” The worst markets to invest include Atlantic City, Philadelphia and Baltimore. [more]