Area prices increase while values drop

Residential home sales in the Tri-parish region, as well as the rest of the nation, have offered a mixed bag of information. Buyers and sellers are advised to closely examine what to expect.

CoreLogic, a subsidiary of First American Corporation, tracks financial real estate and consumer information. As a provider of detailed business analysis, CoreLogic has released its most recent Home Price Index, in which researchers found that overall, U.S. home prices – including distressed sales – declined 5.7 percent in January after having posted a 4.7 percent drop by the end of 2010.

However, in the Houma-Thibodaux metropolitan statistical area, home prices increased slightly more than 1 percent in January compared to the same time one year earlier.

The HPI suggested that Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes were slightly bucking a national trend and even beat state figures for Louisiana, which showed a decrease in single-family home prices of 0.2 percent.

Louisiana posted the smallest year-to-date drop in single family homes. Prices were off the most in Idaho at more than 15 percent. At the same time West Virginia listed the highest increase in market price at 5.5 percent.

While home prices during the past four years have ushered in a buyer’s market, area Realtors contend that an increase in cost does not necessarily balance with the value of a home.

“Overall, values for year 2010 vs. 2009 were down by 7 percent,” said Patterson Real Estate broker Ron Brooks said from his office in Houma. “Volume was down and units were down.”

While there are pockets of influence and neighborhoods where values have seen an increase during the past decade, Brooks said that overall value on the amount invested has not kept up with prices being asked on the market.

The average home price in Houma, according to Brooks, is $160,000. With a 7 percent difference, the owner of that property would see it carry a market value of $148,800.

The difference between price and value could leave a seller taking a loss. “If you bought in the last 18 months, you could be upside down now. But that’s zero unless you have to sell,” Brooks said.

“I think values have probably stayed about the same, but we are seeing more property going towards [repossessions],” said Acadia Realty agent Stefany Deroche of Thibodaux.

Deroche said that the availability of repossessed property is thought to have impacted both the value and prices of all homes. “I would say you are getting houses about 30 percent cheaper [from this time last year] on [repossessions] than you would get if it was a regular fair value market sale,” she said.

Still, the market is showing mixed signals for professionals in this field as well as buyers and sellers. “We lost a little bit as far as that tax incentive everyone was getting last year to purchase,” Deroche said. “As far as this year, we’ve had a lot of rural development financing, which is making housing opportunities unbelievable for some people, especially first time buyers.”

“I can tell you that January was a very soft month,” Brooks said. “February picked up and March has picked up. “I think [buyers] are getting a little more confidence. There is probably a feeling that if oil keeps going up, at some point in time [because] we are in the middle of oil, we should probably benefit from that and not be punished.”

Until then, real estate watchers contend that prices and values might not equal one another until the overall economy and detailed perspectives stabilize.