In other national real estate news, CoreLogic reports that 254,000 US properties regained equity in the first quarter of 2015, bringing the total number of mortgaged residential properties with equity at the end of A1 2015 to approximately 44.9 million, or 90% of all mortgaged properties. Nationwide, borrower equity increased year over year by $694 billion in Q1 2015.
“Many homeowners are emerging from the negative equity trap, which bodes well for a continued recovery in the housing market,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic.
“With the economy improving and homeowners building equity, albeit slowly, the potential exists for an increase in housing stock available for sale, which would ease the current imbalance in supply and demand. There are still about 5 million homeowners who are underwater and we estimate that a further 5 percent appreciation in home values across the U.S. would reduce the number of owners with negative equity by about one million.”