Half of us are under water…the other half is just treading water

By Paul Owers May 24, 2012 06:00 AM

Zillow: Underwater mortgages still plague Broward, PB counties

Despite the recent rise in home prices, nearly half of Palm Beach County mortgage holders owe more than their properties are worth, real estate website Zillow.com says.

In Palm Beach County, more than four in 10 Palm Beach County mortgages are “underwater.” The figure, 46 percent, is down slightly from a year ago. Almost a third of the underwater homes in the county are worth only half of what’s owed, Zillow said.

Most of the affected homeowners in Palm Beach County and across the country are making their mortgage payments on time, the website said.

For now, an underwater mortgage “is only a paper loss,” Stan Humphries, chief economist for Zillow, said in a statement. Values will continue to rise in the months and years ahead, he said.

But it could be a decade or more before prices increase enough to allow some of these homeowners to come close to breaking even in a sale. Until then, they’re stuck in their homes, at risk for foreclosure and weighing down the housing recovery, Humphries and other analysts say.

To find out how long it will take you to get back to even using three different appreciation scenarios, use the special calculator at: DoesItPayToStay.com

Thanks for reading…Steve Jackson

561.602.1258 (direct)