Millions Escape Negative Equity | Pound Ridge Real Estate

When the housing bubble popped, it trapped more than 16 million homeowners in homes worth less than the balance on their mortgage. Two years after the peak of that crisis, Zillow found that nearly half those people have escaped from negative equity.
Nationally, the number of upside-down homeowners is down 40 percent since 2012, according to Zillow’s Q3 Negative Equity Report.
To get out of negative equity, some homeowners went through foreclosure or a short sale. Others just hung on, making mortgage payments while property values improved. At any rate, millions of them are now free to sell their homes, offering energy to the recovering housing market.
Across the country, the hardest-hit cities saw the greatest relief. Of homeowners with a mortgage in Atlanta, for example, 55 percent were upside down in early 2012. Now, only 23 percent are. Phoenix peaked with 58 percent of mortgaged homeowners in negative equity in 2011, but now, that number has dropped to less than 20 percent.
“The market has made terrific strides since bottoming out in late 2011 and early 2012, with millions of underwater homeowners freed in just the past few years, and millions more set to surface in coming months and years,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries.
To dive into our recently released Q3 Negative Equity Report, visit Zillow Research.

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