POSTED: Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009

Whatcom County's real estate market still considered overvalued in national report

Whatcom County's real estate market is still considered to be overvalued, but not nearly as much as a few years ago, according to a new national study.

IHS Global Insight recently released its third quarter update of its Home Prices in America report, which determined the Bellingham metro area (Whatcom County) was 20 percent overvalued last quarter, ranking it eighth highest among 330 metro areas.

However, that's down from the previous quarter, when Whatcom County was considered 21.1 percent overvalued, and a long way down from three years ago, when this area was considered 41.3 percent overvalued.

Global Insight looks at a variety of factors beyond prices to determine home valuations, including household income, population densities and interest rates.

Only 15 metro areas are considered overvalued, which is any place above 14 percent. Eight of those are in Washington and Oregon. Southern metros, especially in Texas, have remained undervalued, according to the report. In total 105 metro areas are considered undervalued in the U.S.

Taken as a whole, the report indicates the entire U.S. real estate market is now 8.6 percent undervalued.

Atlantic City, N.J., at 30.2 percent overvalued, was considered the most overvalued real estate market in the nation, followed by Wenatchee (28.9 percent), Ocean City, N.J. (26.6 percent) and Longview (22.3 percent). The most undervalued metro area in the report was Las Vegas (41.4 percent undervalued).