In the St Louis area during the 2nd quarter of this year, there were 30,407 (5.4 percent of all residential properties) with negative equity, or underwater, according to a report just released by Corelogic. This is a decline of nearly 20 percent (19.89%) from a year ago when there were 37,581 St Louis homeowners in a negative equity position.
In addition to the homeowners that are underwater, or in a negative equity position, during the 2nd quarter of 2017 there were 9.660 homeowners, or another 1.7 percent of all homeowners with a mortgage, that were in a “near-negative” equity postion (they have less than 5% equity), according to the report.
Negative Equity and Underwater Defined
Two terms that we didn’t hear much prior to the real estate market bubble burst in 2008 were negative equity and underwater. However, after the bubble burst, we heard those terms a lot and now, even 9 years later, still are. So, what is considered “negative equity” or being “underwater” for a homeowner? Basically, in a nutshell, it means the homeowners current home loan balance is greater than the current value of their home leaving them in a position where they cannot sell their homes without “bringing money to the table.” For homeowners in a “near negative-equity position” they are better off since they have some equity (5% or less) but, since the cost of selling a home and relocating typically exceeds that amount of equity, those homeowners could face the plight of having to bring money to the closing as well, making it hard to sell for many homeowners in this position.
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