Underwater mortgages may not reverse until 2017

Underwater homeowners in the New York City region might not see positive equity till 2017, according to real estate research group First American CoreLogic, due in part to the area’s higher average disparity between underwater mortgage debt and home values. Although a smaller percentage of mortgage holders in the New York City area — which CoreLogic counts as the five boroughs and parts of Westchester and New Jersey — are underwater compared to the rest of the nation, the situation is more dire. Just 10 percent of the metro region’s mortgage holders are underwater, compared to 24 percent nationwide, but the average underwater mortgage in the New York City region is 39 percent above what the home is worth — a full five percentage points more the national average figure.