Housing Overvaluation Reported Declining

The incidence of overvaluation in the nation's housing market continued to decline in the fourth quarter, as the overall number of single-family housing units deemed to be overvalued declined from 17% to 16%, according to an analysis released by Global Insight Inc., Waltham, Mass.The quarterly Housing Valuation Analysis, which looked at the top 317 U.S. real estate markets (representing 91% of the single-family housing market), also found that the percentage of single-family asset value deemed overvalued fell from 31% in the third quarter to 28% in the fourth quarter. "Nearly all markets posted a decline in the level of overvaluation, which signals that the overall housing market is beginning to trend back to more normal price growth," said Jeannine Cataldi, senior economist and manager of Global Insight's Real Estate Service. The analysis is a joint effort of Global Insight and National City Corp., Cleveland. More information can be found online at http://www.globalinsight.com/housingvaluation and http://www.nationalcity.com/housevaluation.