But decrease was weakest for 5 years
The number of US homes with estimated values at least 25% lower than the loans secured on them was down to around 5.2 million by the end of the first quarter of 2018.
But the 291,000 decrease in seriously underwater properties was the smallest since ATTOM Data Solutions began tracking in Q1 2013.
The total number of seriously underwater homes represented 9.5% of all homes with a mortgage, up from 9.3% in the previous quarter but down from the 9.7% in Q1 2017.
"We've reached a tipping point in this housing boom where enough homeowners have regained both sufficient equity and sufficient confidence to tap into their home equity — resulting in a noticeably slower decline in seriously underwater properties and slower growth in equity rich properties," said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions.
The number of homes with equity of 20-50% (LTV of between 80% and 50%) was down by 1.7 million from Q1 2017, an 8% decrease and representing 36.1% of all homes with a mortgage.
There were more than 13.8 million equity rich properties (25.3% of all US properties with a mortgage), up 122,000 from Q1 2017 (24.3%).
States with the highest share of equity rich homes were Hawaii (41.6%); California (41.5%); New York (34.8%); Washington (33.1%); and Oregon (31.8%).
