The picture shows a big drop in the last month, but that's due to my home value. I use the zillow.com appraisal in order to use a consistent methodology, and that sometimes has big changes without clear rhyme or reason. It shows my home value plummeting 10% this month, while my boyfriend's house mysteriously rises over 200% in value! If you follow the zillow prices over time, you see that there are occasional odd blips, and the thing to do is to look at the overall trends. So I can't know whether these changes are temporary blips or part of a more enduring pattern. Also, my town was awarded a casino license Dec. 20th, which will surely impact housing prices, and I doubt the zillow data incorporates any of that impact yet. I didn't want the casino but I'm still praying that the impact on property values (and quality of life) is for the better.
Probably a better comparison than the changes over the past 6 months is a comparison with my end of 2005 data.
Net Worth 12/31/2005, 149,279
Net Worth 12/31/2006, 153,979
Change: +3%--This is due to a 2% increase in assets (mostly retirement funds) and a 1% decrease in liabilities (mostly mortgage).
Taking the year-long view, 2006 wasn't a great year but at least my net worth still rose.
Year End Net Worth
December 30th, 2006 at 07:50 pm
December 31st, 2006 at 03:48 am 1167536903