Home Equity Gains Rose Annually in Q3, but Fell Sharply From Q2

Homeowners with mortgages (which account for roughly 63% of all properties) saw equity increase by 15.8% year over year, according to a new report from CoreLogic.

CoreLogic’s Homeowner Equity Report for Q3 2022 found that this increase represents a collective gain of $2.2 trillion, for an average of $34,300 per borrower, since last year.

Additionally, the report found that annual home equity gains began to slow in Q3 2022, with the average borrower netting $34,300, compared with the nearly $60,000 year-over-year gain recorded in the second quarter. Slowing prices also caused an additional 43,000 properties to fall underwater.

Key highlights:

The quarter-over-quarter decline in equity is partially due to cooling home price growth across the country, as annual appreciation fell from about 18% in June to just slightly more than 10% in October.
As home price gains are projected to relax into single digits for the rest of 2022, then possibly move into negative territory by the spring of 2023, equity increases will likely decline accordingly in some parts of the country.
Quarterly change: From Q2 to Q3 2022, the total number of mortgaged homes in negative equity increased by 4% to 1.1 million homes or 1.9% of all mortgaged properties.
Annual change: In Q3 2021, 1.2 million homes, or 2.2% of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity. This number declined by 9.8% in Q3 2022, to 1.1 million homes or 1.9% of all mortgage properties.
Because home equity is affected by home price changes, borrowers with equity positions near (+/- 5%), the negative equity cutoff, are most likely to move out of or into negative equity as prices change, respectively. Looking at the Q3 2022 book of mortgages, if home prices increase by 5%, 127,000 homes would regain equity; if home prices decline by 5%, 172,000 properties would fall underwater.

Major takeaway:

“At 43.6%, the average U.S. loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is only slightly higher than in the past two quarters and still significantly lower than the 71.3% LTV seen moving into the Great Recession in the first quarter of 2010,” said Selma Hepp, interim lead of the Office of the Chief Economist at CoreLogic. “Therefore, today’s homeowners are in a much better position to weather the current housing slowdown and a potential recession than they were 12 years ago.”

Added Hepp, “Weakening housing demand and the resulting decline in home prices since the spring’s peak reduced annual home equity gains and pushed an additional number of properties underwater in the third quarter. Nevertheless, while these negative impacts are concentrated in Western states such as California, homeowners with a mortgage there still average more than $580,000 in home equity.”

For the full report, visit www.corelogic.com/intelligence/homeowner-equity-insights.