U.S. Homeowners Four Times as Likely to be Equity-Rich Than Seriously Underwater
ATTOM Data Solutions reports that in the fourth quarter of 2019, equity-rich properties comprised 27% of all mortgaged homes. The highest equity levels were in the San Francisco Bay area.
According to ATTOM’s fourth-quarter 2019 U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report, released in early February, 14.5 million residential properties in the U. S. were considered equity-rich, meaning that the combined estimated amount of loans secured by those properties was 50% or less of their estimated market value.
The count of equity-rich properties in the fourth quarter of 2019 represented 26.7%, or about one in four, of the 54.5 million mortgaged homes in the U.S. That percentage was unchanged from the third quarter of 2019.
The report also shows that just 3.5 million, or one in 16, mortgaged homes in the fourth quarter of 2019 were considered seriously underwater, with a combined estimated balance of loans secured by the property at least 25% more than the property’s estimated market value. That figure represented 6.4% of all U.S. properties with a mortgage, down slightly from 6.5% in the previous quarter.
The top 10 states with the highest share of equity-rich properties in fourth quarter 2019 were all in the Northeast and West regions, led by California (42.8% equity-rich), Vermont (39.2%), Hawaii (38.8%), Washington (35.4%) and New York (35.1%).
States with the lowest percentage of equity-rich properties were Louisiana (13.6% equity-rich),
Oklahoma (14.9%), Illinois (15.3%), Arkansas (16.3%) and Alabama (16.5%).
