One of the reasons we are so confident about the long-term health of the market is because of the equity that exists in peoples’ homes today.
Because there is so much equity, there are very few homeowners who are ‘underwater’ with a loan that is more than the actual value of the property.
According to the latest ‘Homeowner Equity Insights’ report from CoreLogic, only 2.3% of all homes are ‘underwater’ with negative equity.
To put that in perspective, in the fourth quarter of 2009, 26% of all mortgaged properties had negative equity.
Nationally, homeowner equity has increased by $2.9 Trillion during the last 12 months (that’s Trillion with a ‘T’)!
Locally, only 1.4% of Colorado mortgage holders have negative equity, which is one of the lowest rates in the Country.
What this all means is very, very few distressed sales and overall health in the real estate market.