By DON FENLEY

TRI-CITIES, Tenn. – Homeowner equity has surged since the pandemic. During the third quarter, over half of the region’s mortgaged properties were equity rich. Before the pandemic, Unicoi. Johnson and Sullivan counties were rock stars with 24% to 23% equity-rich mortgaged properties.

And the good housing health news extends to economically stressed mortgaged properties, at least for now. Seriously underwater mortgages are at record lows. The downside is they are expected to increase next year.

That assessment is gleaned from ATTOM’s, a leading curator of real estate data, Q3 equity report and underwater report.

“By all measures, homeowner equity around the country remained strong during the third quarter as millions of households kept benefitting from the nation’s extended runup in home values. At the same, though, we saw an unusual downturn at the equity-rich end of the spectrum,” said Rob Barber, chief executive officer for ATTOM. “That could have just been a temporary blip. It also could have reflected an increase in long-time owners who had lots of equity built up selling their homes, or perhaps borrowing against their rising wealth and slipping out of equity rich territory. The fourth quarter data should say more about whether residential equity in the U.S. has indeed topped out.”

The local downturn cited by Barber accounted for 2,000 properties.

 EQUITY RICH

Well over half (56,772) of the region’s 100,802 mortgaged properties were equity rich in Q3. That means owners had at least 50% equity.

The local market share is also better than the national of 47% level.

This time last year, the local equity-rich share was 54%. It’s also noteworthy that the number of mortgages increased by 7,492 from Q3 last year, and according to the Census Bureau, more than half of the local owner-occupied households in mortgage-free.

The largest share of equity-rich properties are in Greene and Johnson counties. Each had 60.7%. Hawkins Co. was a close third with 59.9%. Four of the 18 local zip codes included in ATTOM’s report had a 60% or more equity-rich status.

Bristol, VA was the only jurisdiction with less than a 50% share (45.3%), and even that was up from 43% last year.

UNDERWATER

ATTOM’s analysis also found that the number of local seriously underwater properties declined from both the second quarter and last year. Seriously underwater is defined as property where the owner owed 25% of more that its estimated value.

During the third quarter, there were 2,250 (2.2%) seriously underwater properties. This time last year there were 2,452 (2.6%). Before the pandemic, they ranged from 12% to 21%.

Bristol, VA had the higher number of Q3 stressed properties (4.3%) and that was down from 5.7% last year.

None of the local markets had more underwater properties than they did last year.

Categories: REAL ESTATE