Negative Equity Crisis: Harbinger of Foreclosures to Come?

eCredit Daily
February 12, 2010

The alarm has been sounded for several months by mortgage industry insiders, real estate professionals, consumer groups and others testifying before Congress or conducting studies:

[efoods]Negative equity, or homeowners “underwater” in their mortgages, will deepen the foreclosure crisis if not addressed by lenders and U.S. officials.

The most recent red flag was sent up by Zillow.com, the real estate researcher and marketplace. It reported this week that mortgages in negative equity were essentially flat from the third to the fourth quarter, moving from 21 percent to 21.4 percent.

But the stark reality remains that one in five homeowners across the country owe more on their homes than their value.

Moreover, the number of homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure reached a peak in December, with more than one in every thousand homes being foreclosed – “a number not reached since Zillow began recording national foreclosure data in 2000,” Zillow said.

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This article was posted: Friday, February 12, 2010 at 6:45 pm

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