Pittsburgh Negative home equity map (York, Franklin: short sales, rental, mortgages)

[airwave09]

This is a fascinating map that one could realistically spend hours analyzing. It is a color shaded map showing the regions of the country that have the highest concentrations of underwater mortgages.

Here are some interesting details that I found:

• The stark changes across the border of Ohio and PA.
• The interior northeast down through appalacia as a whole skipping the housing crisis
• There appear to be 4 distinct regions that were hit the hardest, though not many similarities exist between the regions.
• Zooming in to the Pittsburgh region, our exurbs appear to be the ONLY ones that were completely unaffected by the housing crisis for a major metropolitan area
• Western PA appears to be an oasis between some struggling regions
• Zoom in on Detroit (or Las Vegas), just do it for the amazement factor.

US Housing Crisis - Negative Equity Infographic - Zillow

[Evergrey]

Originally Posted by airwave09

[*]Zoom in on Detroit (or Las Vegas), just do it for the amazement factor.

Neat map. It's gonna take a long time to untangle the mess in Detroit and Cleveland. The underwater mortgages, job loss, population flight... it's a scary situation in those areas.

The hardest-hit areas in PA are the ridiculous long-distance exurbs that sprang up in recent years serving NYC (Pike/Monroe) and DC/Balt (Adams/Franklin/York).

[BrianTH]

My father in Detroit is assembling a little empire of rental properties, mostly through short sales.

Meanwhile, he keeps asking us how much we have lost on our house (I guess my answer isn't credible in his view).

[ML North]

Originally Posted by airwave09

Here are some interesting details that I found:

• The stark changes across the border of Ohio and PA.

Didn't we observe a similar dynamic is some other type of map? Anyone remember what that was?

[airwave09]

Originally Posted by Evergrey

Neat map. It's gonna take a long time to untangle the mess in Detroit and Cleveland. The underwater mortgages, job loss, population flight... it's a scary situation in those areas.

The hardest-hit areas in PA are the ridiculous long-distance exurbs that sprang up in recent years serving NYC (Pike/Monroe) and DC/Balt (Adams/Franklin/York).

Right about those two cities, although looking at the zip code detail you can tell pretty quickly that Cleveland is a heck of a lot better shape than Detroit (which isn't saying much I know). Detroit has an ungodly number of mortgages that are over 200% underwater and much less equity as a whole.

It's funny about those hard hit areas of PA, they are directly caused by people that moved from but are still working in cities outside of the state. Yet our major cities seem to lack any signs of this "red ring of death" that all other nearby major cities possess, hmmm.

[FreightTrainRunning]

From the P-G today:

A recent Brookings report on post-recession trends in housing prices indicates that folks who bought into sprawl before the bubble burst have suffered the most drastic losses in their housing value while some urban neighborhoods saw increases in theirs.

---

“Emerging evidence points to a preference for mixed-use, compact, amenity-rich, transit-accessible neighborhoods or walkable places,” the report says. “According to the National Association of Realtors, 58 percent of homebuyers surveyed prefer mixed-use neighborhoods where one can easily walk to stores and other businesses. Further, 56 percent expressed a preference for communities with amenities such as a mix of housing types, various destinations within walking distance, public transportation options, and less parking.

“The trend is swinging away from neighborhoods that contain primarily large-lot single-family housing, few sidewalks, ample parking, and where driving is the primary means of transportation. Sixty percent of those swinging toward newer amenities do so for the convenience of being within walking distance to shops and restaurants and two-thirds of buyers factor walkability into their home purchase decision.”

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

My father in Detroit is assembling a little empire of rental properties, mostly through short sales.

Meanwhile, he keeps asking us how much we have lost on our house (I guess my answer isn't credible in his view).

I'm guessing your answer that your house has a higher value now?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

I'm guessing your answer that your house has a higher value now?

I've resorted to saying something like, "I don't think we have lost much," but it still won't fly.

[BrianTH]

Also from the article quoted above:

While this research is still emerging, one study posits that small-lot and attached housing units are under-supplied by 11 percent and 8 percent respectively, or an estimated 12 and 13.5 million units, while large-lot housing is over-supplied by an estimated 18 percent, accounting for approximately 28 million units.

That sort of imbalance will take a long time to rectify, but I'm thinking Pittsburgh has a lot of capacity to add such housing in currently underutilized but potentially walkable and fundamentally well-located neighborhoods.

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

I've resorted to saying something like, "I don't think we have lost much," but it still won't fly.

I guess he thinks Pittsburgh and Detroit aren't too different so if home values are bad there, they must be there too.