Home value growth in the U.S. has peaked, and the cooling market has put bubble fears to rest, according to the third quarter Zillow Real Estate Market Reports.
The report, issued Thursday, said that the rate of annual home-value appreciation peaked at 8.1 percent in April and has fallen every month since. It added, however, that U.S. home values are still rising in most markets, and were up 6.5 percent year-over-year at the end of the third quarter.
Appreciation is expected to slow nationwide to 3 percent through the end of the third quarter of 2015, the report said.
Denver’s figures were much higher, however. In the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, home appreciation increased 11.3 percent, up from 10.4 percent in the year before.
But as is forecast for the rest of the nation, home appreciation is expected to slow in Denver, growing just 3.8 percent in the coming year, according to the report.
The inventory of for-sale homes was up 18.6 percent nationwide during the third quarter from the third quarter of 2013. However, there were 10.9 percent fewer homes on the market in metro Denver.
The average metro Denver home value was $271,000 in the third quarter of 2014.
Zillow said that as the market has cooled, the dynamic between buyers and sellers is changing with price cuts now appearing.
In September, nearly 37 percent of listings tracked by Zillow had at least one price cut in the past month, up from 33.6 percent in September 2013.
Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries said that much has changed in one year, noting that this time last year, some markets were reporting home values increasing by 20 percent and raising fears of another housing bubble.
“We always knew these market conditions couldn’t last,” he said in a statement, “and it’s good to see us now on a more natural and sustained glide path down toward more normal market conditions of roughly 3 percent annual appreciation and more balance between buyers and sellers.”
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939, hpankratz@denverpost.com or twitter.com/howardpankratz
