Remember that time about 16 years ago when everyone somehow ended up owing way more on their mortgages than their homes were worth, and then everything just sorta collapsed?
Well, I'm not saying that it's happening again. I'm just saying that there are some parts of the country where it looks like it's sorta maybe happening again:
While most U.S. homeowners are sitting on a mountain of home equity after years of rising house prices, in some pockets of the country an increasing share of mortgage holders are underwater on their loans.
"Underwater" means that your mortgage is worth more than your home. It's the unhappy situation where you take out a large loan on a house, after which the house dips in value. That means even if you sell the house you'll still owe money on it.
As you can see from Axios's report, the damage is largely concentrated in the South, though it's also bad in Illinois and reaches as far north as North Dakota and as far west as Wyoming.
Louisiana tops the list at 11.3% of mortgages. Wyoming is also in bad shape, at nearly 9%.
As Axios notes, the problem is still relatively small: At the height of the 2008 crisis, roughly 25% of mortgaged homes in the country were underwater.
And earlier this year the trends for home prices were overall pretty good:
National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun, meanwhile, said not to panic yet:
It could be a temporary increase [in underwater mortgages] and not necessarily a major concern.
HAHA! Good one.
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