What's My Home Worth?

(MoneyWatch)  Home values took another hit last month, according to the newly-released numbers from the S&P Case/Shiller Index. From April 2008 to April 2009, home prices declined 18.1 percent.

The silver lining? Home prices in the 20 cities the index reviews only declined 0.6 percent from March to April 2009, compared with a 2.2 percent decline from February to March. Of those, 13 cities showed a positive improvement in their annual return, according to David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's. All of the cities, except Charlotte, NC, showed improvement month-to-month.

There are definitely some signs of life in an otherwise flat or declining real estate market. I'm hearing from real estate agents who are busy showing homes - and even submitting some offers - and from attorneys who are getting deals. Title companies, which have slashed workers and closed offices, have been busier with refis, but are starting to see some house closings as well.

Sure, it's anecdotal. And if you don't look too closely, it almost feels like business as usual. Except that we're comparing where we are today with where we were at the edge of the abyss last September and October, when Lehman failed and AIG announced it needed $150 billion to cover its losses, and last March, when the stock market closed around 6,600.

Anything feels better than those gut-wrenching days. It's not a fair comparison.

If you're a developer building new construction, there's no hiding from the numbers. I was working on a table for my new book, Buy, Close, Move IN!, yesterday, and realized just how ugly the numbers are:

• In 1963, the total number of new homes sold or for sale was 560,000.
• In 1982, when mortgage interest rates were 18 percent, 412,000 new homes were sold.
• In 2005, at the height of the housing bubble, developers sold 1,283,000 homes.
• In 2009, developers expect to sell just 382,000 new construction houses.

The sales numbers are abysmal. Even though the number of new construction homes for sale is dimishing, the rate of sale is so slow that it would still take more than 10 months to wipe it out!

Getting to the bottom of the housing crisis - if that's where we are - doesn't mean hundreds of thousands of construction workers are getting rehired anytime soon. And unless the unemployment numbers turn around and we stop losing 600,000 jobs per month, more homes are going to go into foreclosure, pushing down home prices even more.

While we all hope that today's home price numbers represent the bottom, it's hard to imagine that home values won't fall further. Even Robert Shiller says home prices will continue to decline into 2010.

All of which leaves homeowners wondering what their home is really worth and savvy first-time home buyers wondering whether this year's $8,000 tax credit is a better deal than waiting to buy next year, after home values have taken another 8 to 10 percent haircut.

What's your home worth today, and what was it worth at the high point?
(Data courtesy of the National Association of Home Builders.)