Las Vegas Underwater Mortgages Dip Below 50%

hamilton-zanze August 30, 2013

Due to rising single-family home prices, only 48.4% of Las Vegas mortgage holders now have negative equity on their homes. June marks the first time that fewer than half of single-family homeowners are “underwater” since Zillow started following the statistic in 2011. As many as 71% were underwater in Q1 2012. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Index, single-family home prices in Las Vegas increased 24.9% year-over-year in June, the biggest jump in the country.

However, Las Vegas still has over three times the number of underwater mortgages compared to the U.S. average of 23.8% and more negative home equity than elsewhere in the nation. The city’s 161,486 underwater mortgages translated to a total dollar volume of $15.7 billion.