The Six States Where Homes Lost The Most Value

Home prices may have stabilized in some markets, but recent data from sources which include S&P/ Case-Shiller demonstrate in some major cities, prices continue to fall.

The free fall is also evident in a number of states. New Corelogic data shows that in five states the April Home Price Index fell more than 4% year over year. Some of these states have suffered sharp drops since the 2006 home price peak:

Delaware: One of the smallest housing markets in the nation, it is dominated by activity in Wilmington, a city which has most of the state’s population. Like Detroit and Providence, it is an older market which has suffered as manufacturing jobs leave. Wilmington is the headquarter of DuPont. Home prices in Delaware dropped 11.9% when distressed homes are added to normal inventory.

Illinois: One of the largest home markets in the US, Illinois also have a number of old industrial cities which include Gary, Joliet, and Springfield. Most of these cities continue to have high unemployment and have not had the kind of growth in high paying service jobs that have increased in parts of California and Massachusetts. Unemployment in Kankakee and Rockford is over 10% is over 10%.Home prices in Illinois have dropped 6.8% April to April

Alabama: Part of the string of states with poor states and relatively large rural populations, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi to also have relatively low average wage bases. Alabama’s unemployment is below the national average, but education and poverty are noHome price in Alabama fell 6.6%

Rhode Island: Like Delaware, Rhode Island is dominated by one large, old industrial city–Providence.It was once a milling and jewelry  manufacturing hub, but most of those industries have left. Several small towns in Rhode Island are in deep financial trouble. Central Falls went bankrupt last year. Rhode Island’s unemployment is 11.1%Home prices are down 6.2% year over year including sales of distressed home.

Georgia: The state continues to have high unemployment of 8.9%. Much of the state is dominated by agriculture. In Rome and Dalton, two cities in rural areas, unemployment is above 10%. Atlanta’s unemployment rate at 8.5% is also above the national average. Home prices have dropped 5.6% April over April

Douglas A. McIntyre

Methodology: The CoreLogic HPI incorporates more than 30 years’ worth of repeat sales transactions, representing more than 65 million observations sourced from CoreLogic industry-leading property information and its securities and servicing databases. The CoreLogic HPI provides a multi-tier market evaluation based on price, time between sales, property type, loan type (conforming vs. nonconforming) and distressed sales. The CoreLogic HPI is a repeat-sales index that tracks increases and decreases in sales prices for the same homes over time, including single-family attached and single-family detached homes, which provides a more accurate “constant-quality” view of pricing trends than basing analysis on all home sales. The CoreLogic HPI provides the most comprehensive set of monthly home price indices available covering 6,700 ZIP codes (58 percent of total U.S. population), 619 Core Based Statistical Areas (86 percent of total U.S. population) and 1,166 counties (84 percent of total U.S. population) located in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Douglas A. McIntyre