The Boston area’s combined home value is higher than it was during bubble years
The Boston area's combined home value in 2016 was higher than it was during bubble years, according to a new real estate analysis from Zillow.
The Boston area’s combined home value in 2016 was higher than it was during bubble years, according to a new real estate analysis from Zillow.
The total value of all homes in the Boston metro is currently $672.7 billion, a six percent increase from last year, Zillow reported. Nationally, the total value of the U.S. housing stock grew to $29.6 trillion in 2016. According to Zillow, the housing market has regained all the value it lost during the housing crisis.
“The U.S. housing stock is worth more than ever, which is a sign of the ongoing housing recovery,” Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell said in a statement. “As buying a home gets more expensive, affordability remains a concern for many, and these numbers highlight just how much people are spending on housing. The total value of the housing stock grew nearly 6 percent this year, a pace that will likely mean some American families are priced out of homeownership.”
According to The Boston Globe, “In 2005, the median price of single-family homes in Eastern Massachusetts reached a pre-crash peak of $465,000. By 2009, that figure had plunged nearly 13 percent, to $407,500.”
Single-family home values in the Boston area have shot back up in recent years, with some increasing up to 80 percent since 2010.
The wealth of the national housing stock is largely contained within the country’s biggest housing markets. Zillow notes that the combined home values from the top ten housing markets are worth more than $11.2 trillion. That includes Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Miami, Chicago, Boston, San Jose, San Diego, and Philadelphia.
Heading into 2016, Boston was still ranked the No. 4 most expensive place to rent an apartment in the country, just behind San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C.
So it may not come as a surprise that the combined total of all rent paid in 2016 in the Boston metro area was pretty high. Just how high?
A new Zillow report notes that Boston metro area renters paid $10.3 billion to rent in 2016, up 3.3 percent from 2015.
Nationwide, renters paid $479 billion in rent in 2016. That’s $18 billion more than they paid in 2015 and $97 billion more than 2011, when the housing market was still recovering from the recession.
Zillow also reported that 635,000 new renter households formed in 2016. These new renters contributed to the increase in rent spent nationwide, despite the fact that rent appreciation actually slowed this past year.
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