According to new research from Zillow.
Although many of Boston’s neighborhoods are experiencing a real estate boom at the moment, prices in the larger metropolitan area remain depressed, according to data released on Monday by Zillow.
According to the Zillow Home Value Index, the median estimated home value in the Boston region is $365,100, up 8.6 percent over just the past year but still down by more than 5 percent from its peak in 2005. Zillow analysts expect that prices will continue to rise between now and next summer—by 2.5 percent—but will not completely recover until the first quarter of 2016.
Things are brighter right here in the city—well, if you’re a seller, that is. Values right now are far and away higher than they have been anytime before. Zillow estimates that the median-priced condo in the city is worth $431,800 and that it will rise another 3.5 percent during the next 12 months.
Boston is in much better shape than many other major metropolitan areas and the country as a whole. Home values in the U.S. remain 11.3 percent below their 2007 peak, the Zillow results show. Although prices across the country are expected to rise another 4.2 percent through the second quarter of 2015, the pace of home value appreciation is falling as the market normalizes. It will take 2.7 years for U.S. home values to reach their pre-recession levels, if Zillow’s forecasts are accurate.
According to Zillow’s chief economist, homeowners who bought at the peak of the bubble in 2006 and 2007 in dozens of real estate markets across the U.S. will have to wait until 2017 or later to get back to the break-even point on their home, a lost decade in which they will have built up no equity in their homes.
In Las Vegas, values are down 40 percent from their high and will not recover until 2019. The real estate markets in Miami, Tampa, and Orlando are each down more than 28 percent, a depressing statistic that’s worse than that of bankrupt Detroit, Michigan.
So count your blessings if you’re a seller. Curse our hot local economy if you’re looking to buy.
Here’s latest condominium home values by Boston neighborhood, per Zillow’s data:
