Georgia pushes California out of the top 5 states

Yay! Georgia has pushed California out of the top five states for the highest percentage of home mortgages underwater!

Recall that an underwater mortgage is one where the homeowner cannot expect to sell the house for enough to pay off the mortgage.

That’s also known as negative equity.

The good news of California’s slump is included in a report released today by CoreLongic and discussed by Calculated Risk.

The bad boys of the top five:

Nevada, with 58% of all mortgages underwater
Arizona, 47%
Florida, 44%
Michigan, 35%
Georgia, 30%

California is a hair’s breadth beneath Georgia.

Featured photo

A graph from CoreLogic showing negative equity by state. (Not all states are shown because not all states have information available.) The black portion of each bar is negative equity. The red portion is “near negative.”

What a mess.

Fewer Underwater Borrowers, But Housing Keeps Sinking (blogs.wsj.com)
Fewer homeowners underwater, but number is still high (cbsnews.com)
US DATA: CoreLogic’s Q3 negative equity data says or. (forexlive.com)
Almost one-third of California mortgages are underwater (oc-breeze.com)
“Negative Equity”: Make The Banks Pay (mykeystrokes.com)
Calif. has most ‘underwater’ mortgages (lansner.ocregister.com)
Underwater Mortgages Go More Underwater, Miami And Phoenix Hit (247wallst.com)

About the Author

shelley

Shelley Henderson is a reformed computer and networking geek turned freelance writer. Now she only fixes her own networks and computers. That leaves time for writing, and writing and more writing. And editing the Orange County Breeze. Shelley most enjoys visiting and finding out about local businesses to write business profiles that allow our communities to learn more about their local businesses and the people who own and run them. If you own or manage a business in our coverage area and would like to invite Shelley to write a business profile, let us know.