Oregon Homeowner Equity Declined $4.28 Billion in Last Year.

Graph below shows CHANGES in property value, mortgage debt outstanding, and homeowner equity for 4th. Quarter 2010 vs 4th. Quarter 2009. Chart shows that property value has declined more than the decline in mortgage debt, resulting in a decline in homeowner equity.  (If you do the math using detailed reports linked below, you would find that one year average equity decline per mortgage was $5,474).

More state level data available from CoreLogic reports HERE for 4th Quarter 2010 and 4th Quarter 2009 HERE. (My prior post HERE reported caveats when looking at underwater loan data). 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Case-Shiller Data Shows Another Portland Decline in Home Price Index.

National PR is HERE.

For Portland, 2.4% monthly reduction is largest in last year, and 4.8% year to year change is also an increase from last months 4.2%. (National PR says that only Dallas and Portland had 2010 monthly declines from February to January).

Table below shows changes for last year:

Month	Index	Change Since Peak	Change Prior Month	Change Prior Year
February 2010	143.69	-23%	-2.4%	-4.8%
January 2010	147.29	-21%	-1.8%	-4.2%
December 2009	149.95	-19%	-0.3%	-5.4%
November 2009	150.38	-19%	0.3%	-7.5%
October 2009	149.88	-19%	0.1%	-9.9%
September 2009	149.72	-19%	-0.5%	-11.8%
August 2009	150.46	-19%	0.3%	-12.5%
July 2009	150.06	-19%	1.1%	-13.9%
June 2009	148.47	-20%	1.0%	-15.2%
May 2009	146.97	-21%	0.1%	-16.3%
April 2009	146.85	-21%	-0.6%	-16.0%
March 2009	147.68	-20%	-2.1%	-15.3%
February 2009	150.88	-19%	-1.9%	-14.4%

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Ownership Costs vs. Renting: Report Says Renting Is Smart Choice, Including Portland Metro Area.

Center for Economic and Policy Research has new paper HERE.

For Portland metro area, I constructed the table below using data in report:

Measure	Before Taxes	After Tax, 15% Bracket	After Tax, 25% Bracket
Median Home Price 06-07	$283,800	$283,800	$283,800
Monthly Ownership Costs	$1,542	$1,457	$1,400
Monthly Fair Market Rent	$809	$809	$809
Monthly Savings from Rent	$733	$648	$591

(Results are highly dependent on accuracy of values selected for comparison;I have not attempted to analyze the accuracy of the values selected. I did note that rent base used was for 2 BR FMR, which may be less than typical size/quality than a prospective homeowner might be willing and able to pay).

FHFA Paper: Brief History of Prior House Declines.

HERE. A couple of conclusions from paper:

1. "First, house price downturns have tended to be long. The median time required to return to prior peak prices was 10½ to 20 years.
2. Second, it tends to take longer for prices to rise from the trough to their former peak than it takes prices to decline from peak to trough. While the difference is small for Census Divisions and states, FHFA’s Metropolitan Statistical Area and Division (MSA) indexes suggest that the time from peak to trough tends to be about 3¾ years, whereas the median recovery period (from trough to prior peak) was 6⅔ years."

Case Shiller: Portland Annual Decline Tops 15%, Increasing Monthly Decline Drops Ranking by 3 Spots.

National release is HERE.

In the updated monthly comparison for Portland I prepared HERE, the year to year decline continues to set records, reaching 15.3%.

The monthly decline also picked up from 1.9% in February to 2.1% in March; the Portland index is now down 20.8.% from it's record high of July 2007).

Portland's metro ranking for year to year change remained at 7th (best). However, Portland's accelerating rate of monthly decline dropped Portland's monthly change ranking from 8th to 11th best.

Zillow 3rd Quarter 2008 MSA Value/Equity/Distress Data.

Terrific new 3rd quarter single family housing data available from Zillow HERE for MSA's.

Can view map or graphs AND download individual MSA data in Excel. Excel data includes breakouts for cities and neighborhoods within MSA.

I compiled a table and graph HERE for Oregon MSA's showing distress data for Oregon MSA's; shows homes sold for loss, foreclosure %, and homes losing value %.

Oregonian Front Porch blog has related story HERE.

WSJ Story on Borrowers Underwater: Oregon Ranks 38th. out of 44 States.

WSJ has interesting story and graphic HERE with state percentages of homeowners who are underwater--owing more than the value of the home.

While national percentage is given as 18% in the story, Oregon's percentage is 58% below the national average at 7.5%.

My calculation is that Oregon ranks 38th best, among 44 states with data. That rank is the best in the Northwest, one place better than Washington state.

By clicking on column headings in table in WSJ story, you can see ranks. PDF table with ranks I constructed using WSJ data is HERE.