Home values continue to decline, just not as quickly, according to a report from IHS Global Insight.
Home price depreciation in the first quarter fell at a 2.2 percent annualized pace, compared with 12.5 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
Nationwide, home prices have fallen 10.4 percent below their 2007 peak, the result of foreclosures and short sales, the report found.
Prices fell in 199 of 330 metropolitan areas in the study, down from 312 areas in the fourth quarter of 2008.
”While it's too early to see a bottom of this housing downturn, this quarter's deceleration in the rate of decline may signal that the market is beginning to stabilize," said James Diffley, group managing director of IHS Global Insight's Regional Services Group, in a news release.
Florida, however, continues to be one of the areas experiencing the greatest decline, along with California and Nevada.
Fifty-seven metropolitan areas had declines of more than 25 percent from their peaks and 134 had declines greater than 10 percent.
However, nine metropolitan areas – five in California and the rest in Florida, Arizona and Nevada – have seen prices plummet by more than 50 percent from their peaks.
The report suggests that the nation’s housing market is now slightly undervalued, with only the Pacific Northwest – from Idaho to Utah – remaining overvalued.
The report examined the top 330 U.S. real estate markets.