Hundreds of thousands of underwater homeowners moved into positive territory in the third quarter. Borrowers in Hawaii had the highest level of equity, while equity positions deteriorated in New York.
During the third quarter, the number of residential properties with a loan-to-value ratio in excess of 100 percent was 6,360,733.
Upside-down borrowers represented 13.0 percent of all U.S. homes with mortgage financing as of the end of September.
CoreLogic Inc., which released the figures Tuesday, said that negative equity was reduced from three months earlier, when 7.2 million borrowers were in a negative equity position. The second-quarter total was revised up from 7.1 million.
There were 791,000 homes that moved into a positive equity position during the latest period — bringing the total to 42.6 million.
CoreLogic Chief Economist Mark Fleming attributed the improvement to rising home prices and projected further improvement in the coming quarters.
The aggregate value of negative equity was $397 billion in the latest report, declining from $430 billion at the end of the second quarter. The latest total was mostly evenly split between properties with home-equity loans and those with only first mortgages.
“The bulk of home equity for mortgaged properties is concentrated at the high end of the housing market,” the report stated. “For example, 92 percent of homes valued at greater than $200,000 have equity compared with 82 percent of homes valued at less than $200,000.”
Nearly a third of all financed homes in Nevada had LTVs above 100 percent — the worst share in the country.
Florida was close behind with 29 percent. Pushing the Sunshine State’s share up was the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metropolitan area, where nearly a third of financed homes had a mortgage that exceeded the value — higher than any of the nation’s other 25 largest cities. No. 2 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater had a 30 percent negative-equity share.
Next was Arizona’s 23 percent. The Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area had a 23 percent negative-equity rate, the third-worst in the country.
Ohio’s 18 percent followed, then Georgia’s nearly 18 percent.
CoreLogic reported that there were 48,988,792 residential loans outstanding as of Sept. 30 for nearly $8.6 trillion.
The report indicated that the average LTV for all financed properties in the country was 61.4 percent.
The average U.S. LTV was lower than 62.5 percent previously reported for the second quarter.
Nevada’s average LTV was 80.5 percent, the highest of any state. Louisiana followed with a 78.3 percent LTV, then 72.3 percent in both Florida and Mississippi and Ohio’s 72.0 percent.
At 47.7 percent, Hawaii’s average LTV ratio was lower than any of its counterparts and lower than the 49.0 percent in the second quarter.
The Aloha State displaced New York, which saw its average LTV rise to 48.0 percent from 47.7 percent.
