In the first quarter of 2014 9.1 million U. S. residential properties representing 17 percent of all properties with mortgages were seriously underwater—defined as the loan amount 25 percent higher than the market value–down from 26 percent one year ago, and a drop from 9.3 million residential mortgages representing 19 percent of all properties with mortgages n Q4 2013. As worldpropertychannel.com reports on the data compiled by RealtyTrac, two years ago 12.8 million properties with mortgages represented 29 percent of all residential mortgaged properties, as MHProNews.com has learned. “U.S. homeowners are continuing to recover equity lost during the Great Recession, but the pace of that recovering equity slowed in the first quarter, corresponding to slowing home price appreciation,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “Slower price appreciation means the 9 million homeowners seriously underwater could still have a long road back to positive equity.”
“The relatively high percentage of foreclosures with equity is surprising to many because it would seem homeowners with equity could easily avoid foreclosure by leveraging that equity by refinancing or with an equity sale of the home,” Blomquist noted. “But many distressed homeowners with equity may not realize they have equity and in some cases have vacated the property already, assuming that foreclosure is inevitable.”##
