A new report from Pro Teck Valuation Services’ Home Value Forecast suggests that the availability of credit in local markers influences local housing recoveries and accounts for dramatic differences in home prices.

HVF looked at regular average sold prices versus total mortgage trends in San Francisco and Detroit and found that in San Francisco, buyers have averaged 20+% down over the last 14 years to create loan to value ratios between 67 and 82 percent.  In Detroit buyers have averaged LTVs between 86 and 101 percent.  Collateral Analytics, Pro Teck’s partner in Home Value Forecast, found that San Francisco home prices are at an all-time high while Detroit is still trying to return to pre-crash levels, suggesting a direct relationship between LTVs, one of the critical factors determining mortgage approvals, and higher prices.  Conversely, higher LTVs in Detroit may make it more difficult buyers to get financing.

The median LTV levels for closed mortgages in August was 80 for conventional purchase loans and 96 for FHA purchase loans, according to Ellie Mae.

The HVF authors also examined the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale CBSA and found that LTV levels vary from neighborhood to neighborhood within the metro area. The HVF update reported that in Scottsdale, average home prices have been rebounding steadily since 2011 and now are 20 percent below all-time highs after dropping 37.5 percent. Apache Junction, AZ, another city within the CBSA, is still 36 percent below its all-time high. At the height of the housing crisis, homes in Apache Junction lost more than half their value. The community also had more homeowners with high LTV loans foreclosed, leading to a steeper drop in home prices and a slower recovery.

“This should be good news to cities like Cleveland that have not benefitted as much as other communities from the broad housing recovery,” said Tom O’Grady, CEO of Pro Teck Valuation Services. “Some loosening of credit policy will be needed for the recovery to penetrate deeply into the communities hardest hit by the housing crisis.”

“Apache Junction, just like Detroit and Cleveland, would benefit from higher LTV limits to spur the housing recovery,” added O’Grady. “Higher LTV in conjunction with many of the other credit safeguards that have been adopted in the past five years should protect banks and safeguard the economy from a repeat of 2007.”