Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
A new survey shows more than half of all US homes with a mortgage are underwater, or more is owed on the property than its current market value.
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The Study was conducted by Housing Predictor.com and is a depressing indication as to the state of the US housing market. This is in spite of efforts by the Obama administration to lift it out of the doldrums.
Around 54% of those surveyed said they were underwater on their mortgage. These figures are similar to those obtained at the end of March by Zillow. Its survey only covered urban centers in the US, but found nearly one in three homeowners were underwater.
This latest survey by Housing Predictor means more than 27 million homeowners are currently underwater, and the housing market has negative equity of an incredible $4 trillion. According to Federal Reserve Bank economist William Emmons, it would take $3.7 trillion to get homeowners on a level playing field with mortgage debt.
In spite of this gloomy news, housing markets throughout the country are showing signs of gradual improvement, with 70 cities either improving or predicted to improve by the end of 2012. Cities in particularly hard hit areas such as Miami and Tampa in Florida are already seeing home values increase.
