New Study: Housing Market Not as Bad as You Think

• February 26th 2009

by Will Smith

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The University of Virginia has published a study on the nation’s housing market asserting that the real estate situation is not as dire as has been commonly reported. William Lucy, a professor at UVA’s School of Architecture, and Jeff Herlitz, a graduate student in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, analyzed all 50 states, 35 metropolitan areas, and 236 counties, and found that the plunging prices and waves of foreclosure are disproportionately concentrated in a just few states — California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida — plus a handful of metropolitan areas around the country.

The report includes this color-coded map of foreclosure activity around the country:

According to the study, “California had only 10 percent of the nation’s housing units, but it had 34 percent of foreclosures in 2008.” It goes on, “66 percent of potential housing value losses in 2008 and subsequent years may be in California, with another 21 percent in Florida, Nevada and Arizona, for a total of 87 percent of national declines.”

The authors cited the DC metro area as a market where prices have, for the most part, held up:

“In the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, for example, prices have barely changed in the District of Columbia, Alexandria and Arlington County, and parts of Fairfax County in Virginia. The largest price declines (more than 30 percent in 2008) have been in Prince William County, Va., but even there, the range of price declines in its six zip codes ranged from 49 percent to only 6 percent.”

UVA has the report announcement, plus foreclosure and pricing data organized into tables for states and major metropolitan areas, tables for counties, and maps.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/new_study_housing_market_not_as_bad_as_you_think/589.