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Good News For Homeowners; Millions of Homes Return to Positive Equity

Millions of Homes Return to Positive Equity:
Millions of underwater residential properties returned to positive equity during the second quarter, but the pace of improvement is expected to level off as home price appreciation dies down in the second half of the year, analytics firm CoreLogic reported Sept. 10 in its Second Quarter 2013 Equity Report.The report showed that approximately 2.5 million residential properties returned to positive equity, and the total number of mortgaged residential properties with equity currently stands at 41.5 million.The data also revealed that 7.1 million homes (14.5 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage) remained in negative equity at the end of the second quarter — down 19.7 percent from the previous quarter.
“Equity rebuilding continued in the second quarter of this year as the share of underwater mortgaged homes fell to 14.5 percent,” Dr. Mark Fleming, CoreLogic chief economist, said in a news release. “In just the first half of 2013 almost three-and-a-half million homeowners have returned to positive equity, but the pace of improvement will likely slow as price appreciation moderates in the second half.”

The national aggregate value of negative equity was $428 billion at the end of the second quarter compared to $576 billion at the end of the first quarter — down more than $148 billion. Of the 41.5 million residential properties with positive equity, 10.3 million have less than 20 percent equity.

The states with the highest percentage of mortgaged properties in negative equity in the second quarter were Nevada at 36.4 percent, followed by Florida (31.5 percent), Arizona (24.7 percent), Michigan (22.5 percent) and Georgia (20.7 percent). These states accounted for 34.9 percent of nationwide negative equity.

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