USA TODAY: Foreclosures have fallen to new lows since the crisis, and investors, while not selling their homes, are not buying nearly as many. That has taken much of the air out of home prices. In addition, the number of homes for sale is rising, pushing sellers from the driver’s seat to the way, way back.
“What a difference a year makes,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow. “At this time last year, we were worrying about a number of frothy markets that looked like they could be on the edge of another housing bubble, places where homes were appreciating at more than 20% per year and where buyers’ heads were spinning just trying to keep up.”
Now those markets, while not in the red, are barely in the black. Los Angeles, for example, saw home prices rise over 18% in the third quarter of 2013 from the same time in 2012. Now its annual appreciation for the quarter is down to 8%, according to Zillow… (more)
