This piece ran in today's (Dec. 10) St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Don't let the headline fool you; this is good news.

Home Values Decline

By Tim Logan

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Thursday, Dec. 10 2009

The average St. Louis-area home lost 4.3 percent of its value in the past year,
but those losses are stabilizing.

So says Zillow, a Seattle-based real estate firm that sifts a wide range of
data to estimate the value of every house in many major real estate markets.
Its average estimate for metropolitan St. Louis in November was $141,100.
That's down half a percentage point from October, and 9.3 percent off its peak
of $155,600 in the first quarter of 2007.

But the good news, Zillow says, is that value declines are stabilizing. Some
parts of the country — markets such as Boston, Atlanta and Denver — have seen
their overall values increase in 2009. And losses in St. Louis were much less
sharp in 2009 than they were in 2008.

As for 2010, the group's chief economist was wary. He predicted that the
eventual end of the $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers and the inevitable
rise in interest rates will create headwinds for housing next year. How strong
those winds blow remains to be seen.