Trends in Homeowner Equity

Homeowners saw their equity increase year over year while negative equity declined, according to the latest CoreLogic Homeowner Equity Insight report. CoreLogic states that U.S. homeowners with mortgages have seen their equity increase by a total of nearly $485.7 billion since the first quarter 2018, a 5.6% year over year increase. However, negative equity rose in that time as well, but is still down since 2017. CoreLogic data applies only to homes with mortgages, with non-mortgaged properties excluded.
“Our forecast for the CoreLogic Home Price Index predicts there will be a 4.5% increase in our national index from December 2018 to the end of 2019,” said CoreLogic Chief Economist Frank Nothaft. “If all homes experience this gain, this would lift about 350,000 homeowners from being underwater and restore positive equity.”
The national value of negative equity was up quarter over quarter by approximately $2.5 billion, up to $304.4 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2019. Meanwhile, the total number of mortgaged residential properties with negative equity decreased 1% percent from the fourth quarter 2018 to 2.2 million homes.
“The country continues to experience record economic expansion as illustrated by these significant increases in home equity, said Frank Martell, President and CEO of CoreLogic. “Albeit more slowly than in recent years, we do expect further increases in home equity to occur across the nation in 2019.”
On average, homeowners experienced a $6,400 increase in equity year over year in Q1 2019. By state, Nevada experienced the highest year over year increase in home equity, with the average increase at $21,000.
By metro, CoreLogic called the San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco area the “least challenged” metro, with a negative equity share of all mortgages at 0.67%. Los Angeles saw similar low negative equity shares, at 1.5%. Meanwhile, Miami and Chicago saw higher negativity equity shares of 10% and 8.7%, respectively.
DSNews