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76 NATIONAL SNAPSHOT Regional HOMEOWNER EQUITY DOUBLES OVER FIVE YEARS Last year saw borrower equity increase by $908 billion, an annual increase of 12.2 percent. By Molly Boesel e amount of equity in mortgaged real estate increased by $908 billion in 2017, an annual increase of 12.2 percent, accord- ing to the latest CoreLogic Equity Report. Homeowner equity has more than doubled in five years, increasing by $4.5 trillion from Q 4 2012 to Q 4 2017. e nationwide negative equity share for Q 4 2017 was 4.9 percent of all homes with a mortgage, more than 20 percentage points lower than the peak nega- tive equity share—26 percent—recorded in Q 4 2009. Over the past 12 months, 675,000 borrowers moved into positive equity. e improvement in negative equity has been experienced across the country, with all but three states registering a year-over-year decrease in Q 4 2017 (Oklahoma saw a 0.1 percentage point increase, Louisiana a 0.2 percentage point increase, and New York a 0.8 percentage point increase). Figure 1 shows the 25 states with the largest percentage- point decreases in the negative equity share from the previous year. Nevada's 5.5-per- centage-point decrease between Q 4 2016 and Q 4 2017 represented the nation's largest year-over-year decline, and the drop from a high of 72.7 percent in Q1 2010 to 8 percent in Q 4 2017 represented the largest decline from the peak. Figure 2 shows the average dollar amount of negative equity and the negative equity share for 10 large Core-Based Statis- tical Areas (CBSAs) in Q 4 2017. e average amount of negative equity is inversely related to the negative equity share. For example, in this group of CBSAs, San Francisco has the largest average amount of negative equity, but the negative equity share is only 0.6 percent. Miami has the smallest average amount of negative equity, but has a negative equity share that is nearly three times the national average. STATS AT A GLANCE » National share of homes with negative equity ended 2017 at 4.9 percent. » 675,000 borrowers moved into positive equity in 2017. » Nevada saw the largest improvement in the negative equity share over the past year, falling 5.5 percentage points.