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Dayton
Business Journal...
Report:
1
in 4 Ohio homeowners ‘underwater’ on mortgages
by Rick
Rouan, Web coordinator
Friday,
March 2, 2012
Nearly a
quarter of homeowners in Ohio were underwater on their mortgages at the
end of
last year, according to new data from a California research firm.
The share
of homeowners in the state who had negative equity in their homes grew
to 23.9
percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, up from 21.6 percent a year
earlier,
said a report released Friday by CoreLogic Inc.
Ohio’s rate was higher than the national
average of 22.8 percent who were upside down on their mortgages.
CoreLogic
used public data on properties valued between $30,000 and $30 million
to
compile its analysis. Negative equity is created when its mortgage
holder owes
more than the property is worth.
In Ohio,
CoreLogic examined more than 2.2 million mortgages and found nearly
527,000 had
negative equity. More than 134,000 of those 2.2 million mortgages were
“near
negative equity,” defined by the company as “in negative equity or
within 5
percent of being in a negative equity position.”
Together,
that meant about 30 percent of Ohio mortgage holders – more than
660,000 – were
at or near negative equity in their homes late last year.
CoreLogic
Chief Economist Mark Fleming blamed the nation’s high negative equity,
which
has returned to third-quarter 2009 levels, on declining home prices and
slowing
foreclosures.
“While the
economic recovery will reduce the propensity of the inability-to-pay
trigger,
negative equity will take an extended period of time to improve, and if
there
is a hiccup in the economic recovery, it could mean a rise in
foreclosures.”
Fleming said in a release.
The rest of
the region was a mixed bag. Michigan’s 34.7 percent of homeowners with
negative
equity was among the highest in the nation, but Indiana (10.7 percent),
Kentucky (9 percent) and Pennsylvania (8.4 percent) were performing
better than
Ohio. CoreLogic did not have data for seven states, including West
Virginia.
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