According to housingwire.com, the latest CoreLogic report indicates 946,000 properties regained positive equity in the second quarter of 2014, increasing borrower equity year over year by an estimated $1 trillion. The number of homes that remain in negative equity has fallen from 7.2 million, or 14.9 percent of all homes with a residential mortgage, in Q2 2013, to 5.3 million homes, or 10.7 percent in the second quarter 2014, a drop of nearly two million in one year. In dollars, this equates to negative equity declining $432.9 billion in 12 months. The 44 million residential properties with positive equity include nine million, about 19 percent, that have less than 20 percent equity, while 1.3 million have under five percent equity. Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, tells MHProNews, “With more and more borrowers regaining equity, we expect homeownership to become an increasingly attractive option for many who have remained on the sidelines in the aftermath of the great recession. This should provide more opportunities for people to sell their homes, purchase a different home or refinance an existing mortgage.” ##
