Your house is so underwater you need a submarine to get in the front door

Posted by: Peter Coy on May 06

You bought at the peak of the market. You put next to nothing down. (Maybe you even took out one of those 105% LTV loans to cover closing costs.) Now prices are falling, falling, falling, and you are underwater on your mortgage. Deep underwater, where the strange sea creatures dwell.

If it’s any comfort, you are not alone. Here’s what Zillow.com, the real estate website, says today:

“Of homeowners nationwide who purchased when U.S. home values peaked in 2006, one out of every two (51.6%) now owes more on their mortgage than their home is currently worth.”

You’re in better shape if you bought before or after the 2006 peak in prices. Here’s the percentage of homes that are underwater on their mortgages based on when they were bought, according to Zillow:

2003 7%
2004 16%
2005 42%
2006 52%
2007 45%

Las Vegas may look dry, but from the point of view of homeowners, it’s deep underwater. Zillow says that buyers in 2006 posted a median downpayment of just 2%, and since then, home values have fallen 25 percent year-over-year, so 89.9% of homeowners now owe more than their home is worth.

Stockton, Calif., is worse: 95.8%. No wonder it’s known (unofficially of course) as the Foreclosure Capital of the U.S.A.

Check out what these other blogs are saying about the Zillow report:
Housing Prices-Housing Bubble, Zillow’s in-house blog, and the blog at Active Rain by Zillow exec Spencer Rascoff.

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