The average loan-to-value ratio for all residential mortgages in the country improved by 2.3 percentage points from 2011 to 2012 as hundreds of thousands of financed properties moved out of a negative-equity position. One state has an average LTV of only 50 percent.
There were 10.4 million mortgages with an LTV ratio that exceeded 100 percent as of Dec. 31, 2012. That was 0.2 million fewer properties than the revised number as of three months earlier.
Compared to the end of 2011, there were 1.7 million fewer properties with an LTV in excess of 100 percent.
The statistics were reported by mortgage industry data provider CoreLogic, which maintains data on 48.5 million properties with $8.631 trillion in mortgage debt outstanding — or around 85 percent of all financed U.S. properties.
Of the latest negative-equity total, 3.9 million properties had both first and second liens.
Negative equity amounted to $628 billion, falling from $670 billion as of Sept. 30 and $743 billion as of Dec. 31, 2011. The improvement was attributed to an increase in home prices.
Another 11.3 million properties had LTV ratios above 80 percent as of the end of last year, including 2.3 million with LTVs higher than 95 percent.
The average U.S. LTV was 69.0 percent, improving from 69.5 percent three months earlier and 71.3 percent a year earlier.
“The scourge of negative equity continues to recede across the country,” CoreLogic President and Chief Executive Officer Anand Nallathambi said in the report. “There is certainly more to do, but with fewer borrowers underwater — the fundamentals underpinning the housing market will continue to strengthen.
“The trend toward more homeowners moving back into positive equity territory should continue in 2013.”
In Nevada, 52.4 percent of properties were underwater — the worst of any state. The average LTV in the Silver State was 103.7 percent, the highest of all states.
Florida followed with 40.2 percent of its properties upside-down. Florida’s average LTV was 83.6 percent.
Next on the negative-equity scale was Arizona, where 34.9 percent of borrowers were in the hole and the average LTV was 82.1 percent.
Negative equity share was 33.8 percent in Georgia and 31.9 percent in Michigan.
A third of all U.S. properties with negative equity were located in these five states.
On the flip side, home loans in North Dakota had the best equity position — with only 5.6 percent of loans having a balance in excess of the property value. The average LTV in North Dakota was 58.0 percent.
New York had the lowest average LTV:Â 50.3 percent.
With 44.1 percent of all properties in a negative equity position, the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla., metropolitan area had the highest share of negative-equity properties among the 25-biggest areas.
Just 9.9 percent of financed properties in the Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y., area were upside-down — the lowest ratio.
