Spread the Message: Equity Is Growing

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2016
Home owners, on average, saw a gain in equity of $11,000 last year, according to data from CoreLogic. In states like California, Oregon, and Washington, home owners have seen average increases of nearly $30,000 per person.

Read more: 47.2M Homes Nationwide Now Have Equity
Since 2011, the value of the nation’s single-family housing market has gone up 40 percent, with nationwide home equity doubling from $6.1 trillion to $12.7 trillion, CoreLogic’s data shows.

That has helped to rebuild the wealth of America’s home owners, writes Frank Nothaft, CoreLogic’s chief economist in his monthly column.

“Across the U.S., the value of the housing stock and the amount of home-equity wealth held by home owners have risen dramatically during the last five years,” Nothaft notes. The recovery in home equity “has helped support consumption spending and renovation expenditures” too.

Take a look at this chart that shows the breakdown of average equity gain per owner across the U.S.

CoreLogic predicts home equity will continue to make gains in the coming year, reaching $1 trillion, and will add to consumption spending and lead to greater economic growth in 2017.

As appreciation rises, the number is declining of home owners with negative equity, those who owe more on their home than it is currently worth. As of mid-2016, CoreLogic estimated about 3.6 million home owners – or about 7 percent – of home owners with a mortgage were in negative equity.

Source: “U.S. Economic Outlook: October 2016,” CoreLogic (Oct. 6, 2016)