SEATTLE—America's single-family homes will have gained 6.7% invalue, or $2.75 trillion, by the time 2014 draws to a close,locally based Zillow said Friday, further makingup the $6.1 trillion in value they lost between December 2006 andDecember 2011. Yet it's a smaller yearly increase than theresidential market saw the previous year, andZillow says that's in keeping with a moderation in home priceimprovement. It also has implications for the multifamily market,says Axiometrics economist ChuckEhmann.

“Home prices can affect apartment markets, since increasedpurchase costs may keep more people in apartments for longerperiods of time,” Ehmann wrote in a blog posting earlier thismonth. One reason that '14 has been called “The Year of theApartment Market,” he added, was that prices for existing homesincreased in 2012 and early 2013.

But that growth trend began slowing down in the latter part oflast year, Ehmann observed, “which might lead to more demand forsingle-family homes in the next several months. Of course, new homeprices have ticked up in the last quarter, while existing homeprices tend to lag the new-home trend.