When comparing the amount of home loans to the properties securing them, the ratio deteriorated in the final three months of 2013. Still, the number of negative-equity borrowers continued to trend lower.
The average loan-to-value ratio on U.S. residential properties was 61.8 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
The nation’s collective equity position diminished from a revised 61.6 percent in the third quarter but was far better than 69.1 percent in the fourth-quarter 2012.
Those were among the findings in the CoreLogic Equity Report Fourth Quarter 2013.
CoreLogic based the percentages on 42.7 million financed U.S. properties with $8.607 trillion in outstanding mortgage debt.
As of Sept. 30, the total was 49.0 properties with $8.574 trillion in outstanding debt, while it was 48.5 million homes with $8.631 trillion in mortgages as of Dec. 31, 2012.
On properties valued at more than $500,000, average LTVs were less than 50 percent. But LTVs soared to nearly 85 percent on properties worth no more than $100,000.
Overall average LTVs were highest in Nevada at 79.4 percent. Louisiana followed with an average of 78.5 percent. After that was 73.7 percent in Mississippi, 72.7 percent in Ohio and 71.8 percent in Florida.
At only 48.7 percent, average LTV ratios were lowest in New York..
As of the fourth-quarter 2013, there were 6.5 million residential U.S. properties with LTV ratios in excess of 100 percent.
The number of negative-equity properties was the same as three months earlier but well below 10.4 million a year earlier.
“The plight of the underwater borrower has improved dramatically since negative equity peaked in December 2009 when more than 12 million mortgaged homeowners were underwater,” CoreLogic Chief Economist Mark Fleming said in the report. “Over the past four years, more than 5.5 million homeowners have regained equity, reducing their risk of foreclosure and unlocking pent-up supply in the housing market.”
The latest total worked out to 13.3 percent of all financed properties, the same share as the prior quarter. But the share has plummeted from 21.6 percent at the end of 2012.
Among upside-down borrowers, negative equity totaled $398.4 billion, slipping from $401.3 billion in the third-quarter 2013 and tumbling from $628 billion in the fourth-quarter 2012.
Borrowers whose LTVs were at least 125 percent accounted for around 5 percent of all borrowers, a slightly smaller share than in the third quarter.
The report indicated that properties with LTVs of at least 125 percent had default rates of nearly 5 percent, while default rates dropped to less than 1 percent on mortgages with LTVs less than 85 percent.
Among properties valued at $200,000 or less, 81 percent were in a positive-equity position. The share jumped to 92 percent for home valued at more than $200,000.
In Nevada, 30.4 percent of all borrowers were underwater, the highest share of any state. At the other end of the spectrum was Texas, where just 3.9 percent of all properties were in a negative-equity position.
