Are Home Values on the Rise?

A recent housing report shows that home values in the Atlanta metro area continue to slide.

Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index showed that home values in the region dropped 17.7 percent in March and was the steepest decline among 20 cities tracked in the report. The decline in home values are largely affected by foreclosures and the metro area is among the regions with the largest number of forclosed homes in the country.

But other housing experts point out that the Case-Shiller Report shows sales only through March and doesn't include April and May, two of the months that typically show strong sales.

The good news is that the month-to-month loss from February to March was less than 1 percent, far improved from the 2.15 percent drop from January to February.

Experts also point out that the report covers a very broad area of the metro area and may not be an accurate measurement of your community.

According to a Fiserv report there is a silver lining to the declining home values.

• Conventional mortgage payments are now just 12 percent of median family income.
• Home prices back to 1998 levels compared to rents.
• Average home prices expected to rise at annualized rate of 3.9 percent over the next five years.
• Some of the hardest-hit markets are expected to experience the fastest growth during the recovery [which includes the Atlanta market].

Do you think we've finally reached the bottom and will begin to see home values slowly begin to rise?