Text by Sarah Phelan
Produced by First American CoreLogic, using the real estate industry’s home price index, this map is not a pretty sight, despite the pretty colors.
It shows that California remains the clear leader nationwide, in terms of highest home price depreciation.
Prices in California have declined 28.3 percent annually.
Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Rhode Island, Wyoming and Hawaii are the next top losers, in order of percentage loss.
Only three states show price increases: West Virginia, South Dakota and Texas.
These states account for only 13 percent of the US population.
Within California, the biggest losers are Salinas, Merced, Stockton, Riverside, San Bernadino, Ontario, Vallejo, Fairfield, Oakland, Fremont and Hayward, Modesto and Bakersfield (losses of around -29 and -28 percent.)
So, while it’s true that San Francisco home prices have not taken such a huge beating, so far– an average -16.28 percent loss, since last year–it’s worth remembering that much of the city’s workforce lives in the East Bay and the Central Valley.
In other words, the bigger regional hurt is probably a more accurate way of predicting and estimating the wider negative economic impacts that are still headed our way, like a tsunami, gathering offshore.