Median home prices in Pierce County dropped again in November, according to figures released Tuesday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

The median price for a single-family home or condo in November was $230,000. That price is about $32,950 below the median for the same time last year - an almost 13 percent drop.

Month-to-month, however, it's a 4.5 percent decline from $241,000 in October.

The median price is the midpoint of all sales. Half of homes went for more and half for less.

Other county data for November from the Northwest MLS:

• Homes listed for sale dropped from 1,505 a year ago to 1,368.

• Closed sales were cut almost in half compared to a year ago, from 784 to 463.

Look for more details on the data in tomorrow's News Tribune.

Zillow.com said it is laying off 40 workers, about 25 percent of its staff, to weather the "economic storm."

The Seattle-based Web site provides consumers with estimates of their home's value based on market trends and sales.

"This was an incredibly painful decision for me and the leadership team, but, in the end, we concluded that we had no choice but to securely batten down the hatches as we sail into a major economic storm," said Zillow chief executive Rich Barton on the company's blog.

The staff reductions are effective Tuesday. Laid off workers will receive severance packages.

The housing industry has seen sales and prices fall steeply as mortgage money becomes increasingly hard to find. Some major banks and financial houses collapsed under the weight of subprime mortgage loans in recent weeks sending financial markets into a panic and prompting Congress to enact a $700 billion bailout bill.

A recent Webware column by Rafe Needleman names one of our favorite Web sites, Seattle-based Zillow, among 11 Web 2.0 start-ups "in serious danger of falling off a cliff."

Zillow's the site that gives approximations of your home's value based on sales and market data of nearby and like properties.

Here's what he says:

"The real estate site's revenue model is advertising. Real estate and bank advertising. Unless the real estate site starts charging for foreclosure listings, I don't see it doing too well in a hunkered-down economy in which people are trying to hold on to their homes for dear life, not upgrade."

At Zillow, as you might guess, they disagree.

Here's part of their reply from Zillow director of community relations David Gibbons:

"We actually do have a revenue-generating relationship with the supplier of our foreclosure listings, thanks, You're right that it's one of the opportunities to make lemonade right now. Zillow traffic is actually up 40 percent from last year. We're fortunate to enjoy a very strong brand in a fragmented real estate market."

Gibbons says on-line ad growth is out-stripping traffic growth.

"I won't deny that these are tough times and there's no free lunch in the real estate media industry right now. We've been very frank about the fact that this market delays IPO plans for Zillow. But there are opportunities in every market and many home buyers and owners are more interested in the value of their homes today than ever."

The upside of all this housing gloom is that homes that previously seemed unreachably expensive are now more reasonably priced - at least for those with cash and good credit.

We're planning a story or stories about the relative bargains that are now available on the market.

Real estate folks, e-mail me, John Gillie, at john.gillie@thenewstribune.com, with your nominations for the best bargain houses or condos available now.

Include your reasons for nominating the home. For example, it's priced substantially below what the neighbors paid for their homes, it's 60 percent of last year's asking price, it comes with a free cruise on the Amazon or the owner is willing to finance with zero down.

We're looking for a variety of properties at several price points and in several areas of the South Sound.

Our selections will be made somewhat arbitrarily with an eye toward providing our readers a broad idea of what's available on the market. If your nomination isn't picked, it's nothing personal. It may be that we just had too many nominations for 4-bedroom homes in Proctor.

The sharpest national home price drop ever meant a strong tumble in Puget Sound home prices, according to a new index released today.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for July showed a 8.2 percent drop in home prices from last year, and a 1 percent stumble from the previous month. The 20-city index fell a record 16.3 percent in July from the previous year, the largest drop since the index began in 2000.
"There are signs of a slow down in the rate of decline across metro areas, but no evidence of a bottom," said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Standard & Poor's Index Committee.
No prices in any of the cities saw a year-over-year increase, the fourth month in a row of decline. The hardest hit areas still are in the Southwest and Southeast. Las Vegas saw the biggest year-over-year fall, a drop of 29.9 percent with Phoenix close behind with a 29.3 percent drop.
"While some cities did show some marginal improvement over last month's data, there is still very little evidence of any particular region experiencing an absolute turnaround," Blitzer said.
The median home price in Pierce County for August, the most recent available from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, was $250,975, down about $34,000 from last year.

A new study by Coldwell Banker Real Estate rates Tacoma's residential real estate prices 129th in the country among 316 cities.

The study is unique in that it ranks cities not by the median prices of homes, but by the price of a typical 2,200-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 2.5-bath home.

The study shows that geographic location places a huge role in what homes cost.

In Tacoma, according to the Coldwell Banker study, such a home would cost $338,750, but in the nation's most expensive market, the San Diego suburb of La Jolla, Calif., the same home would cost $1.84 million.

The same-sized dwelling in the country's least expensive market, Sioux City, Iowa, the cost would be just $133,459.

Most of the cities at the bottom end of the list are in the Midwest or Texas. That typical home in Houston, for instance, would cost $158,625, and maybe less now that Hurricane Ike has raked over the Texas Gulf coast city.

Not all the inexpensive cities are in the corn fields of the Midwest. The Coldwell Banker "average" home in Colorado Springs on the edge of the Rockies would cost $198,500.

If you're looking to move to the sunnier climate of California, beware. Even with recent steep drops in home prices, eight of the most expensive cities in the country are in the Golden State.

Not only does broad geographic location play a big role in home prices, but so does the city's reputation. The Coldwell Banker house that costs $338,750 in Tacoma would cost $814,483 in Bellevue, just 40 miles distant.

Median home prices in Pierce County dropped in August even as the number of homes on the market declined.

Figures released Tuesday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service showed a 11.9 percent from the same time a year ago.

The median price for a single-family home or condo was $250,975. It’s the 11th drop in the past year. That price is about $4,000 below the median for July. Last August, the median home price was $285,000.

There were 1,871 new listings in August, about 400 fewer than last year’s 2,291. This year has also seen a large drop in closed sales, with 736 in August compared to 1,120 last year. July saw 796 closed sales. Still, Washington has fared better than other regions, especially California and Florida where prices have declined much further.

Pat Maddock, an agent with Coldwell Banker Bain and a former president of the Pierce County Association of Realtors, said he just got back from a three-week vacation, but even on the road, he still thought about the real estate market.

He checked in on different areas across the West Coast, and is convinced that Western Washington is in great shape. Even though the statistics look rough for Pierce County, it is nothing compared to areas such as Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Low prices, lots of homes on the market and low interest rates continue to show that it is a fantastic time to be a buyer. But because of this trend, buyers are “sitting on their hands,” thinking things could get even better and waiting to buy.

“If you are waiting for the market to bottom out, you’re going to miss it,” Maddock said. “You don’t know it’s at its lowest until it climbs upward.”

The most telling statistic to Dick Beeson, NWMLS director and owner of Windermere Commencement Associates, is that there is growing competition – statistics show a 10 percent drop in the number of houses for sale and a 20 percent drop of new listings.

“There is a declining inventory,” he said. “The selection is a little less, and competition is a little bit stronger, because only the strong survive.”

But sellers still have issues to face. Low prices and low rate of closed sales mean it is easy to make the wrong decisions, Maddock said.

“It’s very easy to overprice your home, it’s very tempting to overprice your home, and it’s suicidal to overprice your home,” he said.

Pierce County’s median home price was $255,000 in July, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
That’s where the median stands after year-over-year declines in 10 of the past 11 months.
So what does $255,000 get you?
Here are some samples currently on the market:

Price: $255,000
3 bedrooms, 21/2 bathrooms
17601 108th St Ct E
Bonney Lake

Price: $255,000
3 bedrooms, 1 bath
4415 N 25th St
Tacoma

Price: $255,000
3 Bedrooms, 1.75 baths
417 Buena Vista Ave
Fircrest, WA 98466

I often hear and read about folks trying to find the ever-elusive bottom of today’s real estate market, particularly when it comes to sinking median home prices. Pierce County’s median home price has declined year-over-year 10 of the last 11 months to $255,000 in July, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Some see a bottom in a price that’s stayed essentially flat for most of 2008, though dipping a bit recently, from $260,000 in January to last month’s $255,000. My response: Aren’t prices supposed to be rising during the spring and summer, the hottest sales months of the year?

A Keller Williams agent told me last week we’re halfway through an 18-month down market. A Parkside Realty agent told me this week recovery won’t come until 2011. Which seems awfully far off.

Then I saw a Prashant Gopal BusinessWeek blog post about others seeking the bottom. Here's an excerpt:

It’s easy to call a bottom to the housing slump. The tough part is getting the timing right.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has made many such predictions. “All the signs I look at” show “the housing market is at or near the bottom,” Paulson said in April 2007, a few months before the credit crunch hit.

Just last month Barron’s declared that “Real-Estate Rout May Be Short-Lived.” The evidence: home prices were moving closer to incomes in high-priced markets, existing homes sales had improved somewhat and inventories of unsold homes had dipped slightly. The critics responded swiftly: “During the Bull Market of the ’90s, I used to read Barron’s for their hard edged, skeptical look at many of the excesses on Wall Street, wrote Barry Ritholtz, of The Big Picture blog. “During the past 5 years or so, that skepticism seems to be fading… The latest evidence of this is the wrong headed cover story on Housing.”

Now, a Bloomberg article is suggesting that California might be the first state to hit bottom. The article points out that sales are rising across the state for three consecutive months starting in April. And four in 10 sales were sales of foreclosed homes.

What are your thoughts, predictions?

While home prices countywide continued their year-over-year decline last month, three of the 17 areas tracked by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service stayed even or saw prices increase. Can you guess which ones?

Of note in the two that grew: They had more than or nearly as many homes sold as in the same month in 2007, so activity mirrors buyer willingness to pay for the homes. Where might these be, you ask?

Lakewood, with a year-over-year price jump of 10 percent, and Dupont, where the median home price increased 2.6 percent. (July’s Pierce County home price of $255,000 declined by 9.4 percent compared to July 2007.)

Areas with fewer than 10 homes sold are excluded from the price list, which means Roy and Anderson Island didn’t make the cut. (If your area's not part of the list, check out this earlier post explaining why you won't see the Key Peninsula, Orting and others on either stat roundup.) Tomorrow I’ll have the number of closed sales for each area and how those numbers compare to last year’s. Sales grew in only one area besides DuPont. Any guesses?

The latest Northwest Multiple Listing Service numbers were just released and the median home price in Pierce County continues to decline compared to the same month last year. July saw a 9.4 percent drop to $255,000.

And, despite it being the middle of summer when transactions (and prices) are supposed to be at their busiest and best, July's price also fell compared to June's. Not by much, just 1.6 percent, but a month-to-month dip doesn't help those trying to find the bottom of this slowdown.

Here's a look at Pierce County's year-over-year price changes since the start of 2007. Later this week I'll post breakdowns by areas in the county of July price and sales activity.

2008
July: -9.4 percent
June: -6.6 percent
May: -7.8 percent
April: -4.3 percent
March: - 6.02 percent
February: -7.8 percent
January: -2.5 percent

2007
December: +.01 percent
November: -4.4 percent
October: -1.4 percent
September: -2.4 percent
August: + 4.4 percent
July: +3.3 percent
June: +0.82 percent
May: +6.9 percent
April: +3.2 percent
March: +5.8 percent
February: +12.5 percent
January: +5.3 percent

The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area continued to see housing prices drop in May, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index released today. This time around the year-over-year decline came in at 6.3 percent. As you can see below, the newest numbers top off 11 months of of slowing gains and then decreases in the index for the region. (Month-to-month, prices dropped 0.5 percent -- below the 0.7 percent increase seen March to April.)

All 20 areas followed by the index also saw annual price drops, but some are pretty incredible compared to the ones we’re seeing here. Miami: -28.3 percent; Phoenix: -26.5 percent; Las Vegas: -28.4 percent. Perhaps year-round sunshine isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

By another measure, this area is outperforming some previously hot markets and shows values here are holding up stronger than elsewhere. The index ties the price of a typical house, and its appreciation, to what that house was worth in January 2000. In the Seattle-Tacoma area, the value of a typical house has grown 78.7 percent in the last 7 1/2 years. A few other areas have seen prices decrease so fast that appreciation for the same time period has fallen below this region’s. San Francisco’s price growth for the same time period, for example, is 62.7 percent, Phoenix’s is 57.3 percent and Chicago’s comes in at 50 percent. Each had bigger year-over-year price drops than our area in May.

Nationwide, the 20 metro areas tracked by the Case-Shiller index fell by a combined record 15.8 percent compared to May 2007. Here’s a look at year-over-year changes in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area:

May: -6.3 percent
April: -4.9 percent
March: -4.4 percent
February: -2.7 percent
January: -1.3 percent
December: +0.5 percent
November:+1.8 percent
October: +3.3 percent
September:+4.7 percent
August: +5.7 percent
July: +6.9 percent