The Uneven Housing Recovery | Center for American Progress, Michela Zonta and Sarah Edelman | November 2, 2015

Introduction and summary The Great Recession, which began with the collapse of U.S. home prices in 2007, resulted in an enormous number of households with negative equity. Housing prices dropped nationally by 35 percent during the collapse. As home values fell, the mortgage debt obligations of millions of American homeowners remained fixed, leading to an unprecedented number of homes being worth less money than what was owed on them. Seven years later, about 7.5 million American homeowners are still underwater. Even though home values have continued to rise and the national percentage of homeowners with negative equity is down from 30 percent in the second quarter of 2011 to 15 percent in the first quarter of 2015, there is still much work to be done in order for the market to fully recover. Negative equity is considered one of the principal challenges to an economic recovery at both the local and national levels. The persistence of negative equity imposes significant costs not only on homeowners but also on local communities and the economy at large. When homeowners owe more on their homes than what they are worth, they are unable to draw on home equity to invest in their children’s education or to start small businesses. Homeowners also may curtail their consumption by purchasing fewer goods and services from local businesses, thus curbing employment and income levels. Finally, because of underwater borrowers’ high propensity to default, large concentrations of underwater properties threaten to induce future waves of foreclosures and can contribute to a continuing cycle of decline and disinvestment. The mortgage crisis has affected the entire nation and economy. It is important, however, to recognize that the negative equity crisis has tended to be concentrated in certain areas of the country, and its evolution has followed different patterns based on geography. This report examines the course of negative equity at the county level nationwide and provides an account of the characteristics of counties that have experienced a decrease in the incidence of negative equity compared with those where negative equity rates are stagnating or getting worse. [...]