Foreclosure Caused a $3.3 Trillion Property Value Loss

As the economic recession in 2008 occurred and foreclosure brought median home prices down by 11.6 percent to $192,119, the housing market was busted by $3.3 trillion, take note trillion, of home value. That is almost triple of 2007's $1.3 trillion loss. In the last quarter alone a lost of $1.4 trillion occurred contracting at a 3.8 percent yearly shrinking pace. If that is not enough, a lot of jobs are now lost while foreclosure continues to push home prices down. With that around 2.3 million properties went delinquent, got an auction notice or were repossessed last year. The economic lost now add up to $6.1 trillion since 2006's market peak. Values have been shrinking for the past eight quarters that even the once invincible Manhattan is stricken by the housing crisis. Manhattans median home price are now at $914,544 after crashing 5.8 percent. First time big droppers Seattle and Portland faced 12.1 and 11.7 percent fall respectively. Greenwich, Connecticut and Brooklyn, New York also had declined to $1.5 million (5.8 percent) and $504,652 (2.3 percent) respectively. Then, unemployment rose to 7.2 percent, it the highest in 16 years. 2.6 million jobs were lost. 17.6 percent of homeowners are now in a status called negative equity: when debt is bigger than the actual value of the property. This stimulates more foreclosures that will again increase the housing inventory and eventually bring prices lower. Economic uncertainty plus foreclosures and tougher lending standards equals - continued economic depression in a wider scale. Even the strongholds are now affected. 90of 161 surveyed metropolitan areas experienced home value depreciation including the once immune Rochester, New York and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island metropolitan area also has their median home prices tumble 6.2 percent to $395,478. Even L.A. is now only at $410,692. Las Vegas and Phoenix experienced hard blows with 26.8 and 22.3 percent depressions respectively. But there are still a few places with median price upturn like Fayetteville, North Carolina (6.9 percent), Yakima, Washington (6.2 percent) and Utica-Rome, NY (5.3 percent).