ATTOM: Home Equity Dips Slightly in Q1

May 12, 2025 |By Anneliese Mahoney-amahoney@mba.org

(Image courtesy of Robert So/pexels.com)

ATTOM, Irvine, Calif., released its Q1 Home Equity and Underwater Report, revealing that 46.2% of mortgaged residential properties were considered equity-rich in the first quarter.

That’s down just slightly from 47.7% in Q4 2024. The share of equity-rich homes has dropped each quarter since hitting 49.2% in Q2 2024.

However, the rate is still historically quite high, and nearly double what it was in pre-pandemic Q1 2020.

ATTOM defines properties as equity-rich if the combined estimated amount of loan balances secured by those properties was no more than half of their estimated market value.

The states with the largest annual increases in the proportion of equity-rich homes were Connecticut (up from 42.2% in Q1 2024 to 48% in Q1 2025), New York (up from 49.1% to 54.1%), New Jersey (up from 47.1% to 52.1%), Rhode Island (up from 55% to 59.8%) and Kentucky (up from 28.7% to 33.3%).

The biggest annual decreases in equity-rich homes were in Florida (down from 54.4% to 49.3%), Utah (down from 54% to 50.7%), Arizona (down from 52.9% to 49.8%), Washington (down from 54.2% to 51.3%) and Colorado (down from 48.4% to 45.8%).

“Home equity rates are near their highest points in recent years and the dip we’ve seen early this year in the proportion of equity-rich homes shouldn’t cause too much concern,” said Rob Barber, CEO for ATTOM. “In each of the two previous years, the first quarter marked the lowest point of the year before the proportion of equity-rich homes shot back up in the second quarter.”

The percent of seriously underwater homes–defined as those where the combined estimated balance of loans secured by the property is at least 25% more than the property’s estimated market value–was up from 2.5% in Q4 to 2.8% in Q1 2025.

The biggest increases in seriously underwater rates were in Kansas (up from 2.9% in Q1 2024 to 4.7% in Q1 2025), Utah (up from 2.1% to 2.6%), South Carolina (up from 3.3% to 3.8%), Nebraska (up from 3.7% to 4.1%) and South Dakota (up from 3% to 3.4%).

The states with the largest year-over-year drops in seriously underwater rates were Wyoming (down from 8.8% to 2.5%), West Virginia (down from 5.4% to 4.2%), Kentucky (down from 8.3% to 7.3%), Louisiana (down from 11.3% to 10.5%) and Oklahoma (down from 6.1% to 5.5%).