Double dip in housing values continues, despite tax credit/spring bump

There are so many competing sets of housing numbers floating around out there it's hard to keep score these days.

The home buyer tax credit may have sparked a surge in sales before it expired on April 30th.

But in the first quarter, Greater Boston home values continued a slide that began last fall, Zillow.com contends in its latest quarterly report.

And if present trends continue, local home values could sink below their 2009 low point, the report suggests. And, as I note below, that moment may come faster than you think.

Greater Boston home values fell to $315,000 from February to March, a .4 percent drop - the sixth month in a row that home values fell. That comes after a streak in 2009 that saw values rise for seven straight months after having fallen into a ditch during the dark days of early 2009, Zillow notes.

At $315,000, local home values are still .7 percent above the lows reached in early 2009, but, if you buy into Zillow's numbers, we may be headed below that point fairly soon.

Actually, doing a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, at the current rate of decline, we are talking only another two or three months before we start moving down below those early 2009 numbers.

The report also has some interesting numbers on underwater mortgages as well.

The number of Greater Boston homeowners whose property values are now underwater has jumped significantly and is now over 14 percent. That is an increase of over 15 percent from the end of 2009, Zillow reports.

Meanwhile, 22 percent of all homes sold in Greater Boston in March sold for a loss, according to Zillow.