Percent of homes underwater on their mortgages

Click on image for a bigger graph.

Calculated Riskhas published this nice little chart that shows which states have the greatest amounts of homeowners that have underwater mortgages.

Homes with negative equity are "underwater"; essentially it means the loan balance is greater than what the home is work. This is a problem, because it raises the risk of foreclosure and strategic walk-aways.

States such as Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California and Michigan have large amounts of homes that are underwater. Some states in the middle of the country--such as Oklahoma and North Dakota have the largest percentage of homes with positive owners' equity.

1H-2009 saw 1.5 million homes start the foreclosure process

According to CNN, during the first half of 2009 1.5 million homes began the trek down the foreclosure process---representing 1 in every 89 households.

CNN which used data provided by realtyTrac broke down the data to show the 10 states where the most mortgage foreclosure activity is taking place. Here's the data:

1. Nevada 1 in every 16 houses in foreclosure
2. Arizona 1 in every 30
3. Florida 1 in every 33
4. California 1 in 34 houses
5. Utah 1 in 69
6. Georgia 1 in 70
7. Michigan 1 in 74
8. Illinois 1 in 76
9. Idaho 1 in 79
10. Colorado 1 in 80
11. Ohio 1 in every 86

Two Thirds of Las Vegas Home Mortgages are Underwater

According to zillow some metropolitan areas of the country have just HUGE amounts of homes with mortgages in a negative equity situation.

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The hardest hit locations include Las Vegas, NV (~2/3rds of home owners are underwater), many parts of California (Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Riverside) and Phoenix and Florida.

According to zillow, around 22% of homeowners with a mortgage in the US have negative equity. This makes it much less likely that these home-owners would be able to refinance---and should a negative life event (health issue, divorce, loss of job) occur you count on increased mortgage delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures.

Foreclosures continue to rise

According to a story released today on cnn.com the number of foreclosures continue to be up significantly vs last year.

Some states with the worst levels of foreclosure include:

1. Nevada (1 in 70 houses in foreclosure)
2. Arizona (1 in 147 houses in foreclosure)
   
3. California (1 in 165 houses in foreclosure)
   
4. Florida (1 in 188 houses in foreclosure)

Things in South Carolina got significantly worse compared to last year---As South Carolina's unemployment rate jumped to double-digits, foreclosure filings jumped 254%---and now foreclosures represent 1 in every 818 South Carolina homes.

20% of homes with a mortgage are under-water

Data released today shows that 20% of home owners with a mortgage owe more than what their homes are currently worth.

This amounts to over 8 million residential properties that have negative equity.

The article goes on to state:

Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Ohio remained the most stressed states, with 62 percent of underwater borrowers and just 41 percent of mortgages.

You can read the rest of the article here

You can be sure that as long as states like California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Ohio continue to see unemployment rates rise, delinquency rates on mortgages will go up and with many of those home-owners in a negative equity situation on their loans, and significant amounts of resets yet to come---the collapse in housing prices will continue for a couple of more years.

25% of Mortgages are Underwater in Southern California's San Diego County

As this graphic shows many of the area codes in San Diego County California are underwater (More is owed on the mortgage than what the property is worth). In many zip-codes between 20% to 50%+ of the homes are underwater.

This makes it very difficult to sell your house, and consequently you can expect further increases in short-sales, foreclosures and property price declines in San Diego County.

Jumbo Mortgage Delinquencies are increasing

According to the the WSJ

By NICK TIMIRAOS

Rising defaults by affluent homeowners are raising the specter of another cloud over banks and investors, which could get stuck with thousands of expensive homes.

About 6.9% of prime "jumbo" loans were at least 90 days delinquent in December, according to LPS Applied Analytics, a mortgage-data research firm. The rate was up sharply from 2.6% a year earlier. In comparison, delinquencies of non-jumbo prime loans that qualify for backing by government agencies climbed to 2.1% from 0.8% in December 2007.

Jumbo mortgages average about $750,000 and can run as high as $5 million or more. More borrowers with such loans are being hit by layoffs that are spreading through practically every sector and pay level of the U.S. economy.

On Tuesday, the Labor Department reported that the jobless rate rose in December in all 50 states, hitting at least 10% in Michigan and Rhode Island. States that suffered the biggest jumps in unemployment in the past year include California and Florida, where the largest number of jumbo loans were made.

Nevada leads the nation in the highest rate of houses in foreclosure

Realtytrac.com today issued a report that included data on the percentage of housing units in foreclosure. Overall, the United States has 1.84% of home mortgages in foreclosure---That is up 81% from 2007.

Click on image for a larger view
The Top-10 worst states for foreclosure rates are:

1. Nevada--7.3%
2. Florida--4.5%
3. Arizona--4.5%
4. California--4.0%
5. Colorado--2.4%
6. Michigan--2.4%
7. Ohio--2.3%
8. Georgia--2.2%
9. Illinois--1.9%
10. New Jersey--1.8%
    

California Sub-prime Loan Status-November 2008

Less than half of the sub-prime borrowers in California are current on their mortgage.

According to November 2008 data provided by the New York Fed, only 47% of sub-prime loans are current while 12% are in foreclosure and 14% are already real-estate owned (REO). Over 13% of the loans are over 90 days behind and well on their way into foreclosure while an additional 14% of loans are 1 or 2 months behind.

As California's unemployment rate continues to climb, odds are these numbers will continue to worsen.

Alt-A Loans Delinquent, Foreclosed and REO'd

According to the New York Fed, as of November 2008, 78% of the $705 billion worth of Alt-A Loans were current with their payments. That means that ~$150 billion of loans are delinquent, in foreclosure or already Real-Estate Owned (REO) by the banks.



But as I've blogged about earlier, more than half of the Alt-A Loans are from California & Florida... So how are those two states doing?

As of November, 2008 the Fed shows that 72% of California's $300 billion Alt-A portfolio is current with their payments while 5% (~$15 billion) is 30 - 59 days behind, 3% (~$10 Billion) is 60-89 days behind, and 8% (~$25 billion) is over 90 days behind... An additional 12% is either in Foreclosure or REO... So California is clearly worse off than the rest of the nation, but Florida is even worse:

In November, 2008 only about 2/3rds of the $64 Billion of outstanding Alt-A mortgages were current, with a whopping 17% in foreclosure and another ~15% over 30 days delinquent.

California and Florida Account For Half of the Alt-A mortgage market

According to the New York Fed, as of November 2008 there was $705 Billion of Alt-A Loans outstanding with 42% of those loans coming from California and 9% of the mortgages coming from Florida---Two States which are experiencing some of the steepest drops in home prices.

Additionally, New York accounted for 5% of Alt-A loans, while New Jersey, Virginia and Washington accounted for 3% each... The remaining 44 states accounted for the remaining 35% Alt-A mortgages.

Alt-A Loans vs Subprime Loans

Youtube's Mr. Mortgage created a very interesting video a while back comparing the sub-prime loans (& defaults) with the Alt-A universe of Loans and upcoming wave of resets which will likely cause more defaults.

Sub-prime loans made in CA, NY, FL, NV, AZ and TX

The Wall Street Journal online has published an interesting interactive map that shows the percentage of mortgages that went to sub-prime borrowers between 2004 & 2007.

Specifically you can view what the market looked like for California, Florida, New York, Arizona, Nevada and Texas.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/hispanics08_map.html