I’m not sure but my impression was that this is shotty reporting. I believe the true statisitic is 1 in 10 mortgages is underwater not 1 in 10 households. So we can pull out all the homes across the US owned free and clear of which there are many albeit not so many around here. I also wonder whether they are considering a 1st trust deed and a 2nd or 3rd loan as separate loans. Thus the first can be ok while the 2nd is underwater increasing the % of loans underwater. I also wonder whether they are assuming that all HELOC’s are at there credit limits which is far from true nationally. I’d love to see someone get to the bottom of the study behind this statitics to suss out what the real situation is.
