Home Owners Will Regain More Equity in 2014

More home owners will be are edging above water with their mortgages 2014. The number of underwater homes continues to shrink , regaining equity during the third quarter. A house is said to have negative equity or be underwater when more is owed on the mortgage than the market value of the property. Negative equity can occur because of a decline in value, an increase in mortgage debt or a combination of both. Currently, about 13 percent of homes with a mortgage remain in negative equity compared to 14.7 percent the end of the second quarter. An estimated 42.6 million homes in the U.S. have positive equity. About 20 percent of those homes, however, have less than 20 percent of equity or what is considered “under-equitied”. This according to CoreLogic’s latest negative equity analysis reports. The majority of the homes that have positive equity are in the high-end housing market. Rising home prices continued to help homeowners regain their lost equity in the third quarter of 2013. “We should see a further rebound in consumer confidence and economic growth in 2014 as more homeowners escape the negative equity trap,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic.