Tag Archives: Negative Equity

Backlogged foreclosures, severe oversupply, and negative equity are pulling home prices down further, according to Radar Logic. The company tracks 25 major metropolitan areas across the country. Its latest index recorded a decline in the composite reading of 5.1 percent in April when compared to April 2010. The monthly sales rate remained more than 9 percent below April 2010. While sales of non-foreclosed homes increased more quickly than sales of foreclosed homes, RadarLogic says foreclosures are selling at an average discount of 39 percent.

The phenomenon of strategic default has become a growing concern within the industry, but a new ""Market Insight Snapshot"" released by Experian Thursday suggests the percentage of mortgage defaults involving borrowers who decided to simply throw in the towel is trending downward. Since strategic defaults hit 20 percent of all mortgages 60-plus days delinquent in the fourth quarter of 2008, they've come in below that mark ever since, according to the study. By mid-2010, the share of intentional walk-aways was 17 percent.

Markets across the country are in full-fledged correction mode. That combined with the prevalence of foreclosures has analysts at the research firm Capital Economics convinced that the double dip in home prices will continue throughout this year. In fact, they say the structural factors that are constraining demand, such as higher down payment requirements, probably mean that prices won't rise consistently until 2014. Capital Economics expects up to three million foreclosed homes to make their way to the market over the next few years.

Experts blame the massive inventory of existing homes on the market for hindering the housing sector's recovery. The overhang has been inflated by large volumes of foreclosures, and it's expected to grow with millions more coming down the pipeline. One economist says it will take 6.5 million new household formations to absorb the excess inventory. He expects it will take five years to achieve that goal and emerge from the self-defeating cycle of oversupply pushing prices down, the negative equity triggering defaults, and in turn, further increasing the oversupply.

Underwater borrowers have become a focus of numerous industry surveys and analyses, and a growing concern for market participants due to the potential of negative equity to trigger default. A recent study by CoreLogic delved deeper into the statistics to examine the distribution of negative equity by default status. Aggregate negative equity among mortgage borrowers was $750 billion as of the end of last year. CoreLogic says 8 percent of that total balance involved mortgages that were in foreclosure.

Home equity continued to head south during the first part of the year, but losses were eclipsed by another big jump in the value of financial assets as the stock market sustained positive movement. This, combined with a further reduction in overall debt levels, pushed household net worth higher during the first quarter, according to the Federal Reserve. Real estate assets lost $349 billion of their value over the first three months of 2011. The Fed says a mere 38 percent in homeowner equity is now the norm.

The number of mortgage borrowers who owe more on the loan than their home is worth decreased slightly during the first quarter, but CoreLogic sees a problem area among homeowners with second mortgages. The company found that 10.9 million, or 22.7 percent, of all residential properties with a mortgage were in negative equity as of the end of March. CoreLogic says the underwater ratio of borrowers with home equity loans is more than double that of borrowers without second mortgages.

GMAC Mortgage said Tuesday that the company has signed contracts with all states participating in the Treasury Department's Hardest Hit Fund (HHF). The HHF program was established to provide targeted aid to homeowners in states hit hard by the economic and housing market downturn, specifically, states where unemployment rates are above 12 percent and home prices have experienced the steepest drops.

The U.S. housing market could experience a severe double-dip contraction marked by lower home sales and depressed house prices if Congress fails to raise the federal debt ceiling, according to the Center for American Progress, a nonprofit research group. The Center says inaction to raise the debt limit would spark a return of the economic pain of the past few years as foreclosures would remain at record highs for an even longer stretch. Not raising the limit by early August threatens to put the U.S. itself on the verge of default.

Lender Processing Services, Inc. recently added a new property module to its McDash Loan Data suite of products. The suite is offered by LPS's Applied Analytics division. The new module supplements the McDash database with an updated view of borrower equity. It combines public records information related to second liens with the analytic capabilities of the LPS Home Price Index to provide an indication of current total loan-to-value (LTV) ratios for residential housing across the country.