1.4 million decrease for seriously underwater homes

There was a sizeable drop in the number of US homes that were seriously underwater at the end of the third quarter of 2017

1.4 million decrease for seriously underwater homes
There was a sizeable drop in the number of US homes that were seriously underwater at the end of the third quarter of 2017.

ATTOM Data Solutions says that 4.6 million properties had combined loan amounts of at least 25% above their estimated market values, down 1.4 million from a year earlier and down 800,000 from the second quarter of 2017.

The share of all homes with a mortgage that were seriously underwater fell from 9.5% in the second quarter to 8.7% in the third. A year earlier the share was 10.8%.

"Accelerating home price appreciation this year is increasing the velocity at which seriously underwater homeowners are recovering home equity lost during the Great Recession," said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. "Median home prices nationwide are up 9.4% so far in 2017, the fastest pace of appreciation through the first three quarters of a year since 2013. Continued home price appreciation is also helping to grow the number of equity rich homeowners across the country compared to a year ago."

Rising prices means that 26% of US homes were equity rich (loans 50% or less of estimated market value) totaling more than 14 million homes. Although there was a slight decrease in this metric from the previous quarter, it was
up 905,000 homes from Q3, 2016.

Hawaii (41.9%); California (41.4%); New York (35.7%); Oregon (34.0%) and Washington (33.6%) were the states with the highest share of equity rich homes.