The number of mortgaged homes where homeowners owed more on their loan than the home was worth dropped by 2.5 million in the second quarter from the the first quarter, to 7.1 million, according to a second-quarter home equity report from CoreLogic.
As of the second quarter, 14.5 percent of all residential properties with a loan were underwater — the homeowners owed more on it than it’s worth — down from 19.7 percent in the first quarter. Negative equity nationwide also dropped $148 billion from the first quarter to $428 billion.
Of the 41.5 million properties that now have positive equity at the end of the second quarter, 10.3 million were “under-equitied” — had less than 20 percent equity. Some 1.7 million homes had less than 5 percent equity.
“Price appreciation obviously had a positive impact on home equity over the first half of 2013, especially the second quarter,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, in a statement.
The states that had the highest percentage of homes with negative equity in the second quarter were: Nevada (36.4 percent), Florida (31.5 percent), Arizona (24.7 percent), Michigan (22.5 percent) and Georgia (20.7 percent).
Source: CoreLogic
