Zillow Says Fewer Home Sellers Are Cutting Asking Prices

For the first time in five months, fewer sellers cut the asking price of their home in August, according to the online real estate marketplace ""Zillow"":http://www.zillow.com.
[IMAGE] As of the end of last month, the company says just over one-fourth, 28.8 percent, of all listings on Zillow had at least one price reduction. That's a decrease from the 30.1 percent of listings that had a price reduction as of the end of July.

Price reductions peaked last September, when 32.6 percent of listings on Zillow had at least one price cut.

Zillow also reported that the amount of the price reductions remained flat in August, with asking prices nationally being slashed by a median of 7 percent, unchanged from July.

The biggest price reductions were in Michigan, with sellers in the Flint metro reducing their asking prices by 13.3 percent, and sellers in the Detroit area cutting prices by 11.1 percent.

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According to Dr. Stan Humphries, Zillow's chief economist, home value depreciation stayed constant in July with home values registering a 0.2 percent decline from June and a 3.2 percent decline over the past year.

Out of 125 metropolitan markets included in Zillow's home price study, 85 saw negative year-over-year change in home values in July, 13 saw flat annual change, and 24 saw positive annual change.

The markets seeing the strongest annualized change in home values were San Diego, Oklahoma City, San Jose, San Francisco, Little Rock, and Los Angeles.

The markets seeing the largest declines in home values on a year-over-year basis included Bend, Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Ocala, Lakeland, Grand Junction, Detroit, and Orlando.

Humphries points out that home price depreciation has consistently improved since last December, before going sideways in July.

""Considering home sales fell 27 percent between June and July, sideways really doesn't seem that bad,"" Humphries said, referring to the National Association of Realtors' ""latest existing-home sales"":http://dsnews.comarticles/existing-home-sales-post-worst-showing-in-more-than-decade-2010-08-24 report, which showed buying activity was the lowest it's been in more than a decade.

Zillow reports that foreclosure resales as a percentage of all sales in July notched up slightly to 18 percent, up one percentage point from June. Foreclosures in the month as a percentage of all homes remained at its record high rate of 0.11 percent, according to the company's market data.