Highlands Keeps on Moving Up…

In today’s Rocky…

Homes in the Denver area lost $17 billion in value in 2008 from 2007, according to a national report released today.

The report by Seattle-based Zillow.com, which tracks a variety of real estate data, showed home values dropped 7 percent last year, with the median, or middle price, falling to 2002 levels of $207,688.

In addition to homes that sold, Zillow.com’s data include homes that were not sold and were not on the market. For example, last year Realtors sold about $12 billion of homes in the metro area, about $2 billion less than in 2007. At the end of last year, the total value of all homes in the Denver area stood at $214 billion, according to Zillow.com.

Nationally, home values plummeted 11.6 percent in 2008 from 2007 in the 161 metropolitan areas tracked by Zillow.com.

In the Denver area, Zillow.com says 44.5 percent of the homes closed last year sold for a loss, and foreclosures accounted for 19.7 percent of all the transactions. In addition, 33 percent of the homes have mortgages worth more than the homes.

“It sounds pretty accurate to me,” said Ron Woodcock, a broker with RE/MAX Southeast. “But we’re still way ahead of places like Florida, where I came out of and still have family.”

In the Orlando area, for example, he has family members knocking $50,000 to $75,000 off homes priced in the $250,000 range and they still have trouble selling them.

Zillow.com found that only two neighborhoods in the Denver area gained value from 2007 to 2008.

The Highland neighborhood was No. 1, gaining 1.5 percent, while City Park rose by 0.5 percent. The worst-performing neighborhood on a percentage basis was Morris Heights, which includes North Aurora, which lost 15.4 percent.

John Skrabec, principal of Live Urban Real Estate in West Highland, said he isn’t surprised the northwest Denver neighborhood was on top.

“I think it is all about location and an urban kind of excitement,” Skrabec said. He said there is a “real lack of inventory” of homes priced from $250,000 to $400,000 in Highland and West Highland.

Deviree Vallejo of Kentwood City Properties also said she isn’t surprised that Highland appreciated more than any other neighborhood.

“It’s so funny there are all of these different reports that look at the market in different ways, and the one constant is that Highland is always up,” Vallejo said.