When the housing bubble popped — in 2006, 2007, or 2008, depending on where you were — chances are that the value of your home took a nose dive. But who got hit worse, the top of the market or the bottom?
In an effort to answer this question, Clear Capital, a valuation and analytics firm in Truckee, Calif., (near Lake Tahoe) analyzed the market in terms of “tiers.” Take as a starting point the national peak of the market, that glorious, golden-haze summer of 2006.
At that point, any home that sold for less than $150,000 was in the bottom quarter of properties — what Clear Capital calls a “low-tier” house. Any home that sold for more than $395,000 was in the top quarter of properties — a “top-tier” house. The remaining two in the middle were — of course — “mid-tier.”