Home values nationwide rose for the 16th straight month in February, according to Zillow.
The Seattle-based real estate portal’s Home Value Index climbed to $158,100 as all 30 of the largest metro areas the company covers registered monthly and annual price gains, underscoring a more widespread housing market recovery in advance of the spring home shopping season.
U.S. home values rose 0.1 percent in February compared with January and were up 5.8 percent year-over-year. The 5.8 percent annual gain is the second-largest since August 2006, exceeded only by January’s 6 percent year-over-year jump. The last time national home values were at this level was in June 2004.
Home values in the Boston area rose to $320,600 in February, up 5 percent from a year ago and 0.3 percent from January. According to the Zillow Home Value Forecast, home prices in the Boston area are expected to rise another 1 percent over the next year.
On the rental side, Boston metro rents rose to $1,977 in February, up 6 percent from a year ago and 0.2 percent from January.
Over the next year, U.S. home values are expected to rise 3.2 percent to approximately $163,100, according to the Zillow. This rate is well below the 5.6 percent annual rate of appreciation recorded in 2012, and is in line with Zillow’s expectations that home value appreciation will slow to closer to historic norms of between 3 percent and 5 percent in coming years.
"The housing market recovery has continued to gain momentum over the past several months and looks firmly entrenched as we enter the 2013 spring home shopping season," said Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries in a statement.
"We expect that rising home values will continue to help cure many of the ills still facing the housing market, including high levels of negative equity. Rising home values will free many more homeowners from negative equity, allowing some of them to list their homes for sale which, in turn, will ease supply constraints. Burgeoning new construction will also help bring more supply into the marketplace. As more supply comes on line, home value appreciation rates will moderate and stabilize, marking the final transition from a recovering market to a healthy and sustainable market," he said.
