BAP Blog New Report Finds Increase in Negative Equity in the Bay Area

Zillow has reported that the percentage of Bay Area homeowners who are underwater -- which means their mortgage is higher than the home's value -- edged up from a year ago, as the housing market continues to struggle to get out of its long slump. It reported that some 22.8 percent of single-family houses with mortgages were in negative-equity territory during the second quarter, up from 21.1 percent a year ago, according to their report released Tuesday. Negative equity is still growing because we still have foreclosures happening so the housing values are still declining and as home values decline, negative equity will increase. In Alameda County, 20.2 percent of homes were underwater, up from 17.7 percent, and in Solano County, 55.4 percent of homes were underwater, up from 51.5 percent. Some areas saw improvement. In Santa Clara County, 12 percent of homes were underwater, down from 12.8 percent a year ago. San Mateo County had 13.7 percent of homes with negative equity, up from 10.7 percent. And in Contra Costa County, 33.3 percent of homes were underwater, down from 36.6 percent a year ago. In San Joaquin County, 54.4 percent of homes were underwater, down from 55.9 percent. As a note Bay Area home values for the second quarter fell 6.2 percent from where they were a year ago, but rose 0.8 percent from the first quarter, said the Zillow report. Zillow expects there will be many ups and downs in home values before this is over, and they continue to expect a true bottom in 2012, at the earliest.