The Changing Prospects for Building Home Equity: An Updated Analysis of Rents and the Price of Housing in 100 Metropolitan Areas
The Prospects for Accumulating Equity
Despite the collapsing housing bubble and consequent fall in house prices in bubble markets, the prospects for accumulating equity still look grim for homeowners as prices are still far from reaching their historical norm. The relative merits of owning and renting will be affected by the extent to which homeowners can accumulate equity. Even with the general increase in house prices at the same rate as the overall rate of inflation, homebuyers are at risk of facing plunging home values in bubble inflated markets.
Table 1 below shows that more than 60 metropolitan areas will accumulate less equity in 2012 for a recently purchased home than a home owned from six-months ago. Out of 100 metro areas, 33 are projected to accumulate negative equity in 2012, as opposed to 34 metro areas in our previous report. In fact, all 33 metro areas are in bubble markets as indicated by Table 1 below. They will generally accumulate slightly less negative equity in 2012 than our previous report predicted, due to the decline in house prices and the modest increases in rents assumed in this analysis which is returning the annual rent to price ratio to historical levels. Nevertheless, house prices across the bubble markets still have a long way to fall. In comparison, metro areas without housing bubbles will likely accumulate positive equity in a relatively short period of time.
(part of Table 1)
Major Metropolitan Areas Projected to have Negative Equity in 4 years (2012)
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA
Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA
Honolulu, HI
Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, CA
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA
New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
Salt Lake City, UT
Baltimore-Towson, MD
Fresno, CA
Stockton, CA
Bakersfield, CA
Boise City-Nampa, ID
Modesto, CA
Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown, NY
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH
Worcester, MA
Ogden-Clearfield, UT
Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA
Denver-Aurora, CO
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI
Madison, WI
Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI
Colorado Springs, CO
Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ
Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL