Homeowner Equity Has More Than Doubled in Five Years

• National share of homes with negative equity fell to 6.1 percent in Q1 2017.
• All states saw a decrease in negative equity share over the past year. 
• Nevada saw the largest improvement in the negative equity share over the past year, falling 4.6 percentage points.

The amount of equity in mortgaged real estate increased by $171 billion in Q1 2017 compared with Q4 2016, and increased by $766 billion between Q1 2016 and Q1 2017, according to the latest CoreLogic Equity Report. Homeowner equity has more than doubled in five years, increasing by nearly $4 trillion from Q1 2012 to Q1 2017[1]. The nationwide negative equity share for Q1 2017 was 6.1 percent of all homes with a mortgage, nearly 20 percentage points lower than the peak negative equity share – 26 percent – recorded in Q4 2009.[2] 

The improvement in the negative equity has been national, with all states registering a year-over-year decrease. Figure 1 shows the 25 states with the largest percentage-point change in the negative equity share from the previous year. While Nevada is notable for having the highest negative equity share in the nation, it is also the state with the largest drop in negative equity share in the past year, and the largest decrease from the peak negative equity share. Nevada’s 4.6-percentage-point decrease between Q1 2016 and Q1 2017 represented the nation’s largest year-over-year decline, and the drop from a high of 72.7 percent in Q1 2010 to 12.4 percent in Q1 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 Statistical Areas (CBSAs) in Q1 2017. The average amount of negative equity is inversely related to the negative equity share. For example, in this group of CBSAs, Denver has the largest average amount of negative equity, but the negative equity share is only 1.4 percent, and Phoenix has the smallest average amount of negative equity, but has a negative equity share that is well above the national average.

©2017 CoreLogic, Inc. All rights reserved.   

CoreLogic.com