New York City’s residential mortgage market is beating the national average, but troubled pockets remain in the five boroughs.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, 1.7 percent of New York City’s residential properties with mortgages were considered seriously underwater. That was a hair higher than the share from the same time the year before, 1.63 percent — but almost half the national rate of 3 percent.
TRD Data analyzed property data from Attom that covers ZIP codes with at least 2,000 outstanding mortgages in the quarter. The real estate information firm defines a property as seriously underwater if its mortgage’s loan-to-value ratio is 125 percent or above, signaling that the homeowner owes at least 25 percent more than the property’s estimated market value.
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In the Big Apple, the area with the highest concentration of troubled properties is Flatbush, specifically the 11226 ZIP code, which has a population of more than 100,000 and nearly 43,000 housing units. More than 6.6 percent of the ZIP’s properties are tied to underwater mortgages, up from 3.5 percent the year prior — the greatest year-over-year increase among the city’s ZIP codes. No other NYC ZIP code broke the 6 percent barrier.
Brooklyn is among the most unaffordable housing markets in the U.S. In the third quarter of 2025, homebuyers in the borough needed to shell out 113 percent of their salaries — the highest percentage in the country — to pay for the costs of owning a typical home.
The Corona, Queens, ZIP code of 11368 followed Flatbush, as 5.9 percent of its properties in the fourth quarter were tied to underwater loans.
On the flip side, almost 56 percent of the Big Apple’s homes last quarter were equity-rich, meaning they had a loan-to-value ratio of 50 percent or lower. That was a slight improvement from the fourth quarter of 2024, when 54.9 percent of homes were equity-rich.
Brooklyn has the top five NYC ZIP codes with the greatest share of equity-rich properties. The No. 1 slot went to 11214, which covers Bensonhurst, Bath Beach and Gravesend. More than 76 percent of properties there are equity-rich.
Nationally, 44.6 percent of mortgaged residential properties were equity-rich in the last quarter, down from 46.1 percent in the third quarter and the lowest share since 2021.