23% Of Homeowners Have Underwater Mortgages

The Wall St. Journal reports that 23% of U.S. homeowners owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth. Approximately 10.7 million households has negative equity in their homes, based on data from First American CoreLogic.

The following map shows the percentage in each state (please click to enlarge):



The firm says that these properties are more likely to go into foreclosure and "get dumped into an already saturated market".

Housing prices have dropped so much that 5.3M households are tied to mortgages that are at least 20% higher than what their home is worth and over 520,000 of these borrowers have received a notice of default.