ATTOM: Home Equity Steady in Q4
(Image courtesy of Gene Samit/pexels.com)
ATTOM, Irvine, Calif., released its Q4 2024 U.S. Home Equity and Underwater Report, showing that 47.7% of mortgaged residential properties could be deemed equity-rich in the quarter.
That’s down slightly from 48.3% in Q3 and 49.2% in Q2. But, it’s up from 46.1% in Q4 2023. It’s also well above the 26.5% recorded in early 2020.
ATTOM defines equity rich as those where the combined estimated amount of loan balances secured by those properties is no more than half of the estimated market value.
“The last few months of 2024 marked pretty much a holding pattern for the housing market. That’s typical for the slower fall home buying season. But it certainly wasn’t a downer for homeowners across the country who are sitting on historically high levels of property equity thanks in large part to the endless increases in home values over more than a decade,” said Rob Barber, CEO for ATTOM. “Nearly half of all residential mortgage payers in the U.S. have paid off at least half their loans, leaving many with six-figures levels of wealth available to leverage anything from new home purchases to starting new businesses to paying off major expenses.”
“We are likely to see more of the same steady pace over the next few months before heading into the spring buying season, which will say a lot about whether the housing market keeps roaring ahead and boosts home equity even further,” Barber continued.
The largest annual increases in the portion of homes considered equity-rich were in Rhode Island (up from 54.6% to 60.8%); Missouri (up from 37.3% to 43%); Connecticut (up from 42.4% to 47.9%); New Jersey (up from 46.8% to 52.3%) and Illinois (up from 28% to 33%).
The largest annual decreases in the portion of homes considered equity-rich were in Florida (down from 54.3% to 50.9%); Utah (down from 53.7% to 51.1%); Arizona (down from 52.7% to 50.9%); Oregon (down from 51.2% to 49.6%) and Idaho (down from 57.6% to 56.1%).
The portion of mortgaged homes considered seriously underwater stood at one in 39, close to one in 40 from Q3 and one in 38 in Q4 2023.
