The Most Underwater Mortgages
For individual homeowners, being “underwater” on a mortgage – when a home is worth less than outstanding debt, or has “negative equity” – is one of the worst positions to be in, short of foreclosure.
Zillow.com, a firm that compiles US real estate and mortgage information, has put together a list of the 163 largest metro areas that includes statistics on median home values, market changes and the proportion of homes with negative equity. Also included is data on short sales, which occur when real estate sells for less than the value of outstanding debt on the property.
Included in the data is the “Zillow Home Values Index,” which represents the median measure of home valuations. According to Zillow’s most recent report, the median US home price is $182,378, down 14.2% from a year earlier. Almost one in five - 21.9% - of US homes are underwater.
So, which metro areas have the highest proportion of homes underwater? Click ahead for the results.
By Paul Toscano
Posted 15 May 2009
