negative equity

Case-Shiller Home Prices Declined -4.0% From a Year Ago in December 2011

The S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a -4.0% decline from a year ago over 20 metropolitan housing markets and a -3.9% decline for the top 10 housing markets from December 2010. Home prices are back to early 2003 levels and new index lows. S&P itself has woken up and realized home prices have not yet reached a bottom.

Case-Shiller Home Prices Decline -3.7% From a Year Ago in November 2011

The S&P Case Shiller home price index shows a -3.7% decline from a year ago over 20 metropolitan housing markets and a -3.6% decline for the top 10 housing markets from November 2010. Home prices are back to early 2003 levels. S&P on the continued falling home prices:

Being underwater is the new norm

At the end of June nearly 1/4 of all homeowners with mortgages owed more on their homes than the home was worth.

Some 24% of owner-occupied homes had mortgage debt that exceeded the values of those homes at the end of June, according to data from Equifax and Moody’s Economy.com. That number rises to 32% when looking at the share of homeowners with mortgages that don’t have equity left in their homes.

Overall, 16 million homeowners are “upside-down” on their mortgages, up from 10 million, or 15% of owner-occupied homes, one year ago.