by Calculated Risk on 3/09/2017 10:51:00 AM

From CoreLogic: CoreLogic Reports 1 Million US Borrowers Regained Equity in 2016

CoreLogic ... today released a new analysis showing that U.S. homeowners with mortgages (roughly 63 percent of all homeowners) saw their equity increase by a total of $783 billion in 2016, an increase of 11.7 percent. Additionally, just over 1 million borrowers moved out of negative equity during 2016, increasing the percentage of homeowners with positive equity to 93.8 percent of all mortgaged properties, or approximately 48 million homes.

In Q4 2016, the total number of mortgaged residential properties with negative equity stood at 3.17 million, or 6.2 percent of all homes with a mortgage. This is a decrease of 2 percent quarter over quarter from 3.23 million homes, or 6.3 percent of all mortgaged properties, in Q3 2016* and a decrease of 25 percent year over year from 4.23 million homes, or 8.4 percent of all mortgaged properties, compared with Q4 2015 ...
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Negative equity peaked at 26 percent of mortgaged residential properties in Q4 2009 based on CoreLogic equity data analysis, which began in Q3 2009.
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“Average home equity rose by $13,700 for U.S. homeowners during 2016,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “The equity build-up has been supported by home-price growth and paydown of principal. The CoreLogic Home Price Index for the U.S. rose 6.3 percent over the year ending December 2016. Further, about one-fourth of all outstanding mortgages have a term of 20 years or less, which amortize more quickly than 30-year loans and contribute to faster equity accumulation.”
emphasis added

On states:

"Nevada had the highest percentage of homes with negative equity at 13.6 percent, followed by Florida (11.6 percent), Illinois (11.1 percent), Rhode Island (10 percent) and Arizona (9.8 percent). These top five states combined account for 29.7 percent of negative equity in the U.S., but only 16.3 percent of outstanding mortgages."

Note: The share of negative equity is still high in Nevada and Florida, but down from a year ago.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the distribution of home equity in Q4 2016 compared to Q3 2016.

About 2% of properties have 25% or more negative equity.  For reference, about four years ago, in Q3 2012, almost 10% of residential properties had 25% or more negative equity.

A year ago, in Q4 2015, there were 4.3 million properties with negative equity - now there are 3.2 million.  A significant change.