Las Vegas homeowners regaining property values
Some 37,000 homeowners in Las Vegas crawled out of the hole on their home values in the third quarter, Zillow.com said in a forecast being released Thursday.
Homeowners with negative equity, or owing more than their home is worth, fell to 59.2 percent in the fourth quarter from 63 percent in the third quarter, the online listing firm reported.
At the end of the fourth quarter, there were 197,434 homes with negative equity in Las Vegas metro area, with cumulative negative equity of $19 billion dollars.
The Zillow negative equity forecast predicts that the negative equity rate among all homeowners with a mortgage will fall to at least 56.7 percent by fourth quarter 2013, freeing 8,435 underwater homeowners.
Zillow found that roughly one-fourth of Las Vegas underwater homeowners have 20 percent or less negative equity.
Zillow senior economist Svenja Gudell said Las Vegas dropped 11 percentage points in negative equity, from 70 percent in fourth quarter 2011 to 59 percent, while home values increased 14 percent. Homes that were over 200 percent loan-to-value, or worth less than half the mortgage, dropped from 26.7 percent to 18.6 percent.
“The salient point to take away is that even as home values increase, homeowners are still under water, but not as far,” she said.
“That’s the good news there.”
The 90-day delinquency rate for mortgaged homes in Las Vegas is 14.5 percent, compared with the national rate of 8.9 percent.
In a breakdown of Las Vegas metro, the city of North Las Vegas is most under water at 69 percent, followed by Las Vegas (59.1 percent); Bunkerville (58.4 percent); Henderson (52.2 percent); Logandale (50.3 percent); Boulder City (49.1 percent); Laughlin (46.5 percent); and Mesquite (38.8 percent).
Nationwide, Zillow reported homeowners with negative equity fell to 27.5 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with 31.1 percent a year ago .
Contact reporter Hubble Smith at hsmith@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0491.