While the St Louis housing market is improving, unfortunately the homeowners that can afford it the least are the ones that are still the hardest hit with 41.5% of all homeowners with a mortgage on a home in the bottom price tier (the 25% lowest valued homes in St Louis) being underwater on their mortgage, meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. This is according to the newly released Zillow Negative Equity report which shows that, at the opposite end of the spectrum, in the top tier, only 11% of St Louis homeowners are underwater, or in a negative equity position, on their homes.
For the overall market, 22.9% of St Louis homeowners are underwater on their mortgage as of the first quarter of 2014 and 44% are in a “effective” negative equity position, meaning while they are not technically “underwater” they don’t have enough equity to pay the normal cost of selling their home and are therefore locked into their home unless they have cash to bring to the closing table. For the nation as a whole, 18.8% of homeowners with a mortgage were in a negative equity position during the 1st quarter of 2014 and 36.9% were in an “effective” negative equity position.
(We work hard on this and sure would appreciate a “Like”)
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.