Home values in metro Denver, Greeley, Boulder, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs moved lower in the first quarter from a year ago, according to online home-valuation site .
With the exception of Greeley, however, home values in Colorado declined less than the national average. And Grand Junction is up 3.7 percent, making it among the strongest markets in the country.
“We are still a ways off from a point where housing markets are not losing value,” said Stan Humphries, vice president of data and analytics with Zillow.
Zillow uses sales data, tax assessments, square footage and other variables to value homes in a given metro area or state. Those individual estimates are aggregated into an index, called the Z-index.
Zillow’s index for Denver-Aurora fell 5.1 percent to $213,000 in the first quarter from a year ago, the lowest index price recorded since the first quarter of 2003.
Zillow estimates that metro Denver home values are down 7 percent from their third-quarter 2005 peak of $229,000.
U.S. home values fell 7.7 percent in the past year, also to $213,000.
Even with the most recent declines, U.S. home values rose 4.7 percent a year on average over the past five years, according to the Z-index.
That isn’t the case along the Front Range. In metro Denver, Greeley and Fort Collins, average annual home-price gains are flat to negative since 2003.
Declining home values complicate the sale or refinancing of a home and limit the ability of homeowners to tap their equity.
Zillow estimates that more than half the homes purchased in 2006 in the U.S. and metro Denver are now worth less than the debt owed on them.
Another Zillow survey found a wide disconnect between home-price trends and homeowner perceptions. About 72 percent of homeowners think their home’s value has increased or stayed the same during the past year, but Zillow’s data show that 75 percent of U.S. homes have lost value in the past year.
The metro Denver decline measured by Zillow is comparable with declines reported in the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Index.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
