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4.5 million homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages post-crisis
9% of US households owe more than their homes are worth
Almost 4.5 million U.S. households are underwater on their mortgages a decade after the housing crisis.
About 9.1 percent of households owed more than their homes are worth in the fourth quarter of 2017, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. And about 713,000 owe at least twice as much as their property’s value, the report said, citing Zillow data.
The percentage is declining, but those in areas with stagnant property values are “trapped in their homes with no easy options to regain equity other than waiting,” Aaron Terrazas, a senior economist at Zillow, told Bloomberg.
At the same time, independent mortgage companies are making almost half of new home loans in the U.S., according to a previous report. The trend mirrors lending practices from the subprime crisis, as nonbanks dominate the market for providing loans to borrowers with weak credit and lower incomes. [Bloomberg] — Meenal Vamburkar