20% of mortgages are underwater

The number of underwater mortgages keeps growing:

Because home prices continue to drop across most of the country, the mortgage debt on about 20% of all U.S. single-family homes exceeded the estimated current value of those properties as of Dec. 31, says First American CoreLogic, a real estate information firm based in Santa Ana, Calif. That’s a situation often known as being “underwater” or “upside down.” That proportion will rise to 25% of single-family homes if prices fall another 5%, the firm said.

The problem is most acute in Nevada, where the percentage is 55%, followed by Michigan (40%), Arizona (32%), Florida (30%) and California (30%). Stripping out those five hard-hit states, the national percentage is about 14%. In New York State, the tally is just 4.7%.

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