Seattle-area prices to bottom out at the end of this year?

Moody's Economy.com expects Seattle-area prices to bottom out at the end of this year with a total decline of 19% from the Summer 2007 peak in King and Snohomish counties.

Prices fell 11% from the peak through the end of 2008, according to Moody's. They use a Case-Shiller index that looks at repeat sales of the same houses, similarly to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which reported that area prices already had fallen 19.7% from the peak. The difference is that the latter index also includes Pierce county, which has seen larger price drops that King and Snohomish, and was for the month of January, rather than the previous quarter.

Seattle's projected drop is significantly less than the 37% total decline Moody's expects nationally.

That's because prices rose relatively modestly during the boom and Seattle's economy was stronger to begin with, said Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Economy.com. "It did better during the expansion, so it was in pretty good shape heading into the recession, and that will help."