South Florida home values down 15.4 percent

Home values in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area fell 15.4 percent year-over-year from the fourth quarter of 2009, according to a report released today by Zillow.com.

The Zillow Home Value Index for the metro area fell to $139,100 in the fourth quarter, compared to around $160,000 at the end of 2009. The index looks at the value of all homes in 25 metro areas, not just those sold in a particular period.

The report showed a national index of $175,200.

Of all single-family homes with mortgages, 42.8 percent in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area were underwater, which was an improvement from a 43.8 percent rate in 2009.

“Miami is following a trend that a lot of the rest of the country is seeing,” said Katie Curnutte, a spokesperson for Zillow. “Home values stabilized a little bit, but are falling faster right now because of the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit.”

Values in the area are now down 54.7 percent from their peak in June 2006, compared to a national fall of 27 percent.

“There is a little bit of good news in [the fall],” Curnutte said. “The fact that home values are falling a little bit faster [in Miami-Fort Lauderdale] means we’re probably going to get to the bottom before too long. Nationally, we’re thinking we’ll see the bottom by the end of this year.”

According to the report, 46.7 percent of all homes in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area were sold for a loss in December, which represented an improvement from a 50.4 percent rate in December 2009.

After the national foreclosure-document scandal put foreclosures in hard-hit Florida on temporary hiatus, Curnutte said Zillow did not see a long-lasting impact in the state.

“We don’t think the foreclosure moratorium is going to have a long-lasting substantial effect on the market,” she said.

It often takes a significant amount of time for foreclosures to go through the entire process, and with the months it can take for a home to go back on the market, any impact will be slight, she said.