By Kristena Hansen|Phoenix Business Journal
Home prices may be strengthening, but still not quite enough to bump Arizona off the list of highest underwater rates in the nation.
Nearly one third — 31.3 percent, to be exact — of all mortgaged homes statewide were upside-down by the end of March, according to CoreLogic’s first-quarter negative equity report released today. In actual figures, that’s roughly 407,000 underwater homes, which means the owners owe more on their mortgages than what their homes are worth.
Arizona’s negative equity rate for the quarter was fourth-highest in the nation, CoreLogic reports.
Still, that’s a slim improvement from the end of last year, when CoreLogic ranked Arizona third with a 35 percent underwater rate.
