Home Values Continue to Rise; May Marks Third Consecutive Month of Increases

SEATTLE, June 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- National home values rose for the third month in a row, climbing 0.5 percent from April to a Zillow® Home Value Index[i] of $148,100. While home values continued to decline on an annual basis, falling 0.9 percent from May 2011 to May 2012, this is the smallest year-over-year decline since October 2007, according to the May Zillow Real Estate Market Reports[ii].

National rents also rose from April to May, increasing 1.8 percent, according to the Zillow Rent Index[iii]. Rents rose on a monthly basis in 77 percent of the 344 markets covered by Zillow.

Home values continued their rapid increase in the Phoenix metro, rising 9 percent annually, and 1.9 percent from April to May. In the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro, home values rose 5.2 percent year-over-year and 2.2 percent month-over-month.

"It is promising to see consecutive months of national home value increases, especially during a period in which we'd expected more downward pressure due to foreclosures," said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries. "Attention has now shifted to the tug-of-war situation with inventory, where buyers want to buy but sellers don't want to – or can't – sell. This inventory phenomenon, due to both the broader issue of negative equity that is keeping people in their homes and to rational seller behavior at a market bottom, will make for a more volatile housing recovery than what we initially expected."

Foreclosures continued to decline in May, with 6.3 out of every 10,000 homes in the country being foreclosed. That was down from 7.2 out of every 10,000 in April.

The full national report, in its interactive format, will be available at www.zillow.com/local-info at 8 a.m. ET on Wednesday, June 20. Additionally, in most areas, data is available at the state, metro, county, city, ZIP code and neighborhood levels. More market analysis of the monthly data can be found at www.zillow.com/research and a PDF of the Real Estate Market Report can be found at www.zillow.com/blog/research/data/.

About Zillow, Inc.

Zillow (NASDAQ: Z) is the leading real estate information marketplace, providing vital information about homes, real estate listings and mortgages through its mobile applications and websites, enabling homeowners, buyers, sellers and renters to connect with real estate and mortgage professionals best suited to meet their needs. In addition, Zillow operates an industry-leading economics and analytics bureau led by Zillow's Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries. Dr. Humphries and his team of economists and data analysts produce extensive housing data and research covering more than 150 markets at Zillow Real Estate Research. Zillow, Inc. operates Zillow.com®, Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, Zillow Mobile, Postlets®, Diverse Solutions™ and RentJuice®. The company is headquartered in Seattle.

Zillow.com, Zillow, Zestimate, Postlets and RentJuice are registered trademarks of Zillow, Inc. Diverse Solutions is a trademark of Zillow, Inc.

[i] The Zillow Home Value Index is the median Zestimate® valuation for a given geographic area on a given day and includes the value of all single-family residences, condominiums and cooperatives, regardless of whether they sold within a given period. It is expressed in dollars.

[ii] The data in Zillow's Real Estate Market Reports is aggregated from public sources by a number of data providers for 276 core-based statistical areas dating back to 1996. Mortgage and home loan data is typically recorded in each county and publicly available through a county recorder's office.

[iii] The Zillow Rent Index is the median Rent Zestimate (estimated monthly rental price) for a given geographic area on a given day, and includes the value of all single-family residences, condominiums, cooperatives and apartments in Zillow's database, regardless of whether they are currently listed for rent. It is expressed in dollars.

SOURCE Zillow, Inc.