Home values in the Denver metro area have increased 3.5 percent from a year ago and will go up 1.6 percent in the next 12 months, Zillow predicted Tuesday in its report on housing in the second quarter of 2012.
The Zillow Real Estate Market Reports said that two in five markets will see rising values over the next year.
Zillow, a Seattle-based online real estate database, said national home values have reached a bottom.
“After four months with rising home values and increasingly positive forecast data, it seems clear that the country has hit a bottom in home values,” said Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries . “The housing recovery is holding together despite lower-than-expected job growth, indicating that it has some organic strength of its own.”
The median home values in Denver gained 2.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012 from the year’s first quarter to $211,300 in June.
U.S. home values rose 0.2 percent from the second quarter of 2011 to the second quarter of 2012, the first annual increase in U.S. home values since 2007. The median home value nationally is $149,300, according to Zillow.
Humphries sounded a note of caution on housing.
“There is still some risk as we look down the foreclosure pipeline and see foreclosure starts picking up,” he said. “This will translate into more homes on the market by the end of the year, but we think demand will rise to absorb that, particularly in markets where there are acute inventory shortages.”
In Fort Collins, median home prices rose 1.2 percent in the second quarter, to $219,000, from the first quarter. Prices in Fort Collins increased 2.0 percent from a year ago.
Overall, Zillow predicted that U.S. home values will rise 1.1 percent in the next 12 months.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939, hpankratz@denverpost.com or
