WASHINGTON — If you added up the fair-market value of every house, condo and co-op in the D.C. region, the number you’d come up with is a cumulative $892 billion.
That is sizable number for a metro area with a population of 6.2 million, and in a market where two out of three households are owners, but that is still less than the total cumulative residential real estate value before the housing bubble last burst.
Your home may be worth more than it was 10 years ago — maybe much more — but historical valuations are extremely random, and include everything from neighborhood gentrification to when a home was purchased to improvements that have been made.
If you simply peg median home values 10 years ago to median home values today, which is what real estate listing and research firm Zillow has done, the Washington metro area’s cumulative residential real estate has gained $197.4 billion in value in the last decade, $26.9 billion of it in 2018 alone, but still 5.9 percent or $56.6 billion less valuable than it was during the last housing market peak.
Nationwide, home values have recovered from the trough.
Zillow estimates the total cumulative residential real estate market’s fair market value at $33.3 trillion, including a gain of $1.9 trillion in 2018.
The total value of the U.S. residential market has now gained $10.9 trillion since bottoming out in 2012, and is now $4 trillion more than it was at the peak of the housing bubble a decade ago.
California’s housing market accounts for one third of that gain since 2012, at $3.7 trillion. It is the only state that has gained more than $1 trillion in value since the market fell.
While 2018 built on gains in housing market value, cracks have started to point to a slowdown in appreciation.
“During the second half of the year, appreciation slowed sharply in the priciest corners of the country while it picked up in affordable hot spots,” said Zillow Senior Economist Aaron Terrazas.
“Periods of stability often precede periods of instability, and the outlook for 2019 is certainly both cloudier and blurrier than the outlook a year ago,” he said.
The New York/Northern New Jersey area is the single most valuable metro area, worth $3 trillion, or 9.1 percent of the national housing market
Four California markets — Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and San Diego — are among the 10 most valuable metros in the country.
Las Vegas, San Jose and Atlanta gained the most value in 2018 among the 35 largest metros, with each market seeing double-digit growth.
By state, Maryland’s 2018 cumulative housing market value was $675.8 billion, $124 billion gained throughout the recovery. Virginia’s housing market value is $912.5 billion, $158.6 billion gained throughout the recovery.
