Number of Inland “underwater” homes drops

The number of Inland Empire homes with negative equity dropped during the second quarter, according to a recent report.

An estimated 6.3 percent of all homes with a mortgage in Riverside and San Bernardino counties had negative equity during April, May and June, down from 9.0 percent during the second quarter of 2016, CoreLogic reported.

Commonly known as “underwater” of “upside down,” negative equity means more is owed on a house than the house is worth. It can be caused by a decline in home value, an increase in mortgage debt, or both.

In raw numbers, the number of Inland residential properties in that category went from 74,038 during the second quarter last year down to 52,402 this year, another sign that the local economy is getting stronger.

Compared with the first quarter of this year, negative equity homes in the Inland Empire dropped 1.5 percent.

Nationwide, the number of mortgaged properties with negative equity fell nearly 22 percent, to approximately 2.8 million homes, between the second quarter of last year and the second quarter of this year.

Also, mortgaged homeowners in the United States gained an average of $12,987 in home equity, year over year, during the second quarter of this year, while total  home equity throughout the country increased by approximately $766 billion during that time, according to CoreLogic.