Negative Equity Remains A Primary Factor Holding Back Housing Recovery

At every level, from national governments to individual homeowners, staggering debt is standing in the way of recovery. Severe erosion of US home values and the plague of negative equity leave little doubt that deleveraging will occur by mortgage default. See the following article from HousingWire for more on this.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said the most likely way households will deleverage roughly $1 trillion in excess debt is through the default of more underwater mortgages.

Home prices in the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index have dropped 28.6% from the peak in the summer of 2006. This has led to more than 10.8 million homes, or 22.5% of the entire U.S. market in negative equity as of the third quarter, according to the analytics firm CoreLogic (CLGX: 18.25 +0.27%). And while that percentage is down from the 50 basis points from the previous quarter, negative equity remains the primary factor holding back a recovery in the housing market and the overall recovery.

Get Started

Claim up to $26,000 per W2 Employee

• Billions of dollars in funding available
• Funds are available to U.S. Businesses NOW
• This is not a loan. These tax credits do not need to be repaid

The ERC Program is currently open, but has been amended in the past. We recommend you claim yours before anything changes.

Analysts said the collapse in home prices means the asset value supporting Americans’ debt is no longer there.

“It’s the holidays and talk of deleveraging needs would appear to be sacrilegious or even un-American,” BofAML analysts said. “Most of the deleveraging will come through default of underwater mortgages, although less consumption likely will be part of the equation as well.”

But consumers are not alone. Excess debt is also an issue in municipalities and sovereign nations. Recent increases to interest rates will put more need for the U.S. to begin implement fiscal constraint.

“At a minimum, the vast amounts of excess debt permeating the developed economies will act as a drag on growth for some time,” analysts said.

This article has been republished from HousingWire. You can also view this article at HousingWire, a mortgage and real estate news site.