A Record Number of U.S. Homes Are 'Equity Rich'

Almost a quarter of homes on the U.S. housing market were 'equity rich' last quarter, while the share of homes that were 'seriously underwater' went down to 9.3 percent.

Attom Data Solutions defines an 'equity rich' home as having a mortgage with a loan-to-value ratio of 50 percent or less, while a 'seriously underwater' home's property value is more than double the outstanding mortgage balance. The data show that 17 out of 18 ZIP codes where over three-quarters of the homes in the area are equity rich were in California, with San Jose at the top of the list, per Bloomberg.

Even the hard-hit Floridian real estate market has seen a rapid decline in the number of "underwater properties" since the recession ended ... Fewer Florida homes are worth less than 125 percent of the outstanding mortgage, 415,000 in Q4 2017, versus its peak in Q3 2013 of 2.1 million homes.

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