How much has my Lansing area house gone down in value?

Anyone who has watched the news in the last 5 years realizes that home sellers nationwide has been taking a beating. I wanted to see how local values have been affected, so I pulled the numbers. Here are the results.

I analyzed the MLS sold statistics for single family homes for Lansing and the first ring suburbs, including: DeWitt, East Lansing, Okemos, Haslett, Holt/Dimondale, Mason, Grand Ledge, Bath, and Waverly. I compared the sales numbers from 2005 through this year and the results are fascinating. Overall, these areas are down an average of 23.5% since 2005. DeWitt, East Lansing, Haslett, Mason, Grand Ledge, Bath, and Waverly got better in 2010 over 2009, but Lansing, Holt, Okemos saw modest price declines in the same comparison. The most interesting fact to me, however, is how unevenly these areas have depreciated. If you own a house in Haslett, the average house has only declined in value by 10.5% since 2005, whereas Lansing has declined, on average, by 53.9% in the same period.

One other interesting note. Since Lansing has suffered more than any other town in the number of foreclosures, I thought it would be interesting to take out the foreclosure sales and see how home sales of “real people” have fared. I don’t have a great way to get these numbers, but I removed from my search any sales by any of the agents in our MLS that are doing majority foreclosures and from what I can gather when foreclosure sales are removed, the average rate of depreciation in Lansing is 42% (with some margin of error because of my less than scientific method of calculation).

Finally, there are other “micro-niche” markets that have fared even better or worse. For example, homes in DeWitt built after 2000 have seen 18.5% depreciation since 2005, whereas homes in DeWitt as a whole have declined about 25%.

I thought it would be interesting to pull stats on certain neighborhoods in Lansing as well and found that Groesbeck and The Westside Neighborhood are off 23% and 35% respectively, whereas the Baker-Donora Neighborhood has declined on average by 70% since 2005.
Here are the numbers:

DO I QUALIFY FOR A SHORT SALE IN THE GREATER LANSING AREA?
AVOID FORECLOSURES IN THE LANSING AREA

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevendepolo/

July Lansing Real Estate Statistics

Well, here they are. The most anticipated numbers all year. Our July numbers are out. Why are these numbers so important? Because the Federal Home Buyer Tax Credit was set to expire on June 30th, so these numbers are truly the first month of numbers after the tax credit expired. As expected, the numbers of closed sales took a HUGE beating this month, dropping from 589 closed sales in July of 2009 to just 384 in July of 2010. This was expected since it is generally agreed that the tax credit pulled buyers forward. This just means that buyers who were thinking about buying a home this summer were more inclined to buy a home this spring instead in order to qualify for the tax credit. The number that got me excited was the average sales price. Despite the credit’s expiration the average sales price still went up a whopping 4.6%! (Ok, maybe not whopping, but still headed in the right direction) In July 2009 the average sales price was $109,814, which rose to $114,996 in July of 2010. Click here for full Lansing real estate statistics.