Home Buying

Boston’s real estate boom is leaving some homeowners behind

Steve Helber/AP

September 28, 2015

2 minutes to read

Home prices may be surging in Greater Boston, but apparently not everyone has been invited to the big real estate bash.

Even as prices in hit all-time highs in a number of well-off suburbs and hip urban neighborhoods, owners of roughly 13.5 percent of all single-family homes and condos in the Boston area actually saw their values sink, not rise, last year, Zillow reports.

What’s going on here is a combination of some homes having already peaked in price, combined with other homes that never managed to bounce back after the Great Recession, according to Zillow.

“We’re not going in reverse, but we are hitting the brakes a bit in some markets,’’ said Zillow Chief Economist Svenja Gudell, in a press release.

Story conintues after gallery.

Neighborhoods where sellers are getting more money than they asked for:

Neighborhood where home sellers get more than they asked for

Still, Boston is far better off than many other cities, with more than 27 percent of all homes last year across the country having gone down in price.

Nearly half the homes and condos in Baltimore – 48 percent – lost value this year, was well as 43 percent of Philadelphia homes and 41 percent of homes in Washington, D.C., Zillow reports.

But the Boston area loses some of its shine compared to a number of booming West Coast cities, with the percentage of homes with declining values a mere 5 percent in San Francisco, 6.5 percent in San Jose and 7 percent in Seattle.

Meanwhile, another recent Zillow study shines some additional light on which homes and condos are struggling despite one of the hottest real estate markets in years.

Nearly 13 percent of all condos in the Boston area remain underwater, with their market value worth less than their mortgage. That’s compared to 6.5 percent of single-family homes.

Also taking it on the chin are homes and condos at the bottom of the price pile.

Roughly 13.6 percent of the Boston area’s least expensive homes – properties in the bottom third price tier – are worth less than their mortgages. That’s compared to 6.4 percent of the middle tier and just 3.9 percent of the top third of homes, Zillow reports.

“It’s easy to say the recession is over when a third of the biggest markets are more expensive now than ever before, but we’re still seeing a number of homes losing value,’’ said Gudell, the Zillow economist, in a press release. “The reality is there are still areas lagging behind in the recovery.’’