Recent studies reveal that 20 percent of Americans owe more on their homes than the home is worth. Mortgage loan modification, even if they could get it, would do no good for 1 in 5 homeowners. That number is slowly decreasing, though. .
20 percent of mortgages underwater
According to CNN Money , a real estate investigation indicated that just more than 20 percent of American home owners owed more on their mortgage loans than their homes are worth. That figure is at 21.5 percent, down from 23.3 percent, indicating some homes gained more than a pay day loans worth. This means there is less negative equity. That’s a lot of people that cannot use or likely get mortgage loan modification. As less equity means less debt relief in a depressed market, some would be better off if they were to get a unsecured loan to get out of a house inching closer to foreclosure.
Values climb but so do foreclosures
There is really some improvement in real estate prices. One can never purchase a home for the same as a cash advance, but the cost of homes is improving. Major metro areas where most homes are underwater benefited most. That improvement may be reflective of the 75 percent of major cities which had more foreclosures. Las Vegas, Nev., is nevertheless the worst city in America for real estate. Unemployment there is higher than 14 percent, and almost 74 percent of homes in Sin City are underwater. About one in 15 homes are in foreclosure.
The economy wants to one day have even modest recovery
There are few relative improvements to speak of. The unemployment rate has dipped slightly, and some people are not as bad off as they used to be on their mortgages. What recovery has taken place is doing this at a very slow pace.
Additional reading
CNN
money.cnn.com/2010/08/09/real_estate/fewer_underwater_borrowers/index.htm
money.cnn.com/2010/07/29/real_estate/new_face_of_foreclosure/index.htm
