There are fewer Albuquerque-area homeowners underwater on their mortgages compared with last year.
Research by California-based real estate analytics company CoreLogic determined that only 7,760, or 4.4% of all Albuquerque-metro residential properties with a mortgage in the third quarter were in negative equity, or underwater, compared with 9,997, or 5.6%, a year earlier.
Underwater mortgages are those on which borrowers owe more than their homes are worth.
According to CoreLogic, the San Francisco area has the country's lowest percentage of underwater mortgages, at 0.6%.
Nationally, negative equity decreased 22% for all mortgaged properties, said CoreLogic.
"While homeowner equity is rising nationally, there are wide disparities by geography," said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. "Hot markets like San Francisco, Seattle and Denver boast very high levels of increased home equity. However, some markets are lagging behind due to weaker economies or lingering effects from the great recession."
Negative equity peaked at 26% of mortgaged residential properties in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2009 based on CoreLogic equity data analysis.
