Underwater Mortgages Still Haunt US Households

Nearly 10 million U.S. households remain stuck in homes worth less than their mortgage and a similar number have so little equity they can't meet the expenses of selling a home, trends that help explain recent sluggishness in the housing recovery.

At the end of the first quarter, some 18.8% of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage—9.7 million households—were "underwater" on their mortgage, according to a report scheduled for release Tuesday by real-estate information site Zillow. While that is an improvement from 19.4% at the end of last year and a peak of 31.4% 2012, those figures understate the problem.

In addition to the homeowners who are underwater, roughly 10 million households have 20% or less equity in their homes, which makes it difficult for them to sell their homes without dipping into their savings. Most move-up homeowners typically use their home equity to cover broker fees, closing costs and a down payment for their next home. Without those funds, many homeowners can't sell.

It's a sobering appreciation that negative equity is going to be with us for a while to come," said Stan Humphries, Zillow's chief economist. "Negative equity is central to understanding a lot of the distortions in the marketplace right now."

Those distortions include the inventory of homes for sale, which, while rising, is low by historical standards. It also helps explain why first-time home buyers are having such a hard time cracking the market. Real estate is in some ways like a ladder, Mr. Humphries notes, so when underwater homeowners don't trade up it makes it harder for newcomers to get in.

At the same time, prices have risen about 11% over the past two years, and several times that in rebounding markets like Las Vegas, Phoenix and much of California. Rising prices, combined with higher mortgage rates, have given sticker shock to buyers looking for a deal. This has been particularly hard on first-time home buyers who are usually in the market for a lower-priced home.

In the report, Zillow notes that the least expensive homes—those in the lower third of the price spectrum, which first-time home buyers are most likely to be shopping for—are much more likely to be underwater than higher-priced homes. Nationwide, about 30% of homes in the bottom third of the price range were underwater in the first quarter, compared to 18% of homes in the middle third and 11% of homes in the top third. (Zillow derives its underwater data by matching its database of estimated home values with loan balances from TransUnion, the credit reporting agency.)

Regionally, underwater homes are concentrated in areas where the real-estate bust hit hardest. Among major metropolitan areas, Las Vegas had the nation's highest share of underwater mortgages, followed by Atlanta and Orlando, Fla.

Many underwater homeowners have gone into foreclosure or executed a short sale, where they sell the home for a loss. But many aren't budging. "There are people who still have their jobs and they're not late on their payment, but they can't move," said Vita Deveaux, a real-estate agent at Keller Williams Realty First Atlanta.

Take Patricia McCutcheon, 50 years old, who lives in the Clayton County area near Atlanta. Ms. McCutcheon and her husband owe $119,000 on their home, but figure it could sell for about $70,000 based on recent sales in the area. The debt hasn't kept them from moving up: In July, they are leaving their home for a new place in Paulding County. But instead of selling their underwater home, they are going to rent the place out. "It seems to be the only option that we have," she said.

Ms. McCutcheon, who is a full-time student working on a bachelor's in psychology, says she and her husband, who works in information technology, considered a short sale, but didn't want their credit rating to suffer.

China's Real Estate Bubble Begins to Bursts

Late yesterday China released its April economic data and here’s the tale it tells of the property sector is of concern. New starts contracted 15% year on year (vs. -21.9% in March), property sales fell 14.3% year on year (vs. -7.5% in March); and land sales (by area) fell 20.5% year on year (vs. -16.9% in March). This chart is from Society Generale:

The greater risk to China lies in the pervasive consequences of any property bust. Property investment has grown to account for about 13 per cent of gross domestic product, roughly double the US share at the height of the bubble in 2007. Add related sectors, such as steel, cement and other construction materials, and the figure is closer to 16 per cent. The broadly defined property sector accounts for about a third of fixed-asset investment, which Beijing is supposed to be subordinating to the target of economic rebalancing in favour of household consumption.

…The reason things look different today is the realisation of chronic oversupply. As the property slowdown has kicked in, housing starts, completions and sales have turned markedly lower, especially outside the principal cities. Inventories of unsold homes in Beijing are reported to have risen from seven to 12 months’ supply in the year to April. But when it comes to homes under construction and total sales, the bulk is in “tier two” cities, where the overhang of unsold homes has risen to about 15 months; and in tier three and four cities, where it is about 24 months.

…If activity levels and prices weaken further, Beijing’s resolve not to respond with traditional stimulus programmes is unlikely to hold. We should expect a potpourri that might include: extra spending on infrastructure and environment programmes; faster urbanisation in inland and western provinces; some relaxation on restraints on homebuying, such as mortgage deposits; and, ultimately, new monetary easing.

Cash Is King In Today's Real Estate Market

One in three buyers of U.S. homes is paying cash, a record high number, according to data made available to McClatchy. The trend is being driven by retiring baby boomers and rich investors, who unlike most first-time buyers can bypass tighter lending requirements to pay cash. They now rule the roost, composing record percentages of residential home sales.


It’s meant the field is closed off for conventional purchasers in some hot markets, but in others it’s meant forward momentum for the struggling housing sector. All-cash sales as a percentage of residential real estate sales stood at 33 percent from January to March this year. That’s up from 31 percent for all of 2013 and 2011 and 29 percent for 2012. These are the highest percentages since the National Association of Realtors started collecting the data in 2008. Before that, it estimated that cash buyers historically represented less than 10 percent of all sales.


The group analyzed state-level numbers on behalf of McClatchy, and it found that states such as Florida, South Carolina and Wyoming had outsized cash sales during the first quarter of 2014.
The rising cash sales come despite a drop in one of the main draws for cash purchases: financially distressed properties sold through foreclosures or at a loss to the banks.


“What is surprising is how cash continued to remain high even though distressed property sales are declining. Distress sales invited all the cash purchases,” said Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the Realtors’ group. Distressed home sales declined from 26 percent of the national market in 2012 to 17 percent in 2013 to 15 percent over the first three months of 2014. It means that even as the housing market heals and conventional sales return, all-cash purchases remain a big chunk of residential sales.


Yun points to a couple of trends that are driving the boom in cash purchases, trends that fall into the broader debate about rising income inequality in the United States. One driver appears to be wealthy investors, foreign and domestic, diversifying into real estate. Another is baby boomers selling homes that were paid off and retiring elsewhere with the proceeds, purchasing homes.


“Trade-downs are certainly a reason,” Yun said. “The five-year bull run on the stock market is also helping the upper-end households,” he added, noting many are diversifying out of stocks after several years of big gains. That’s in line with what 41-year veteran Sandra Schede has been seeing.
“The rates (of return) are so low for putting their money into the bank or investments at this time that it makes much more sense to purchase real estate using cash,” said Schede, the incoming president of the Connecticut Association of Realtors.


“The rental market is really strong right now, so it gives them a better return over a short period of time.”Boomers are buying the higher-priced properties with cash, while investors tend to buy below the midpoint price.

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