Nevada leads the country in negative equity; more than double the U.S. average

Zillow has released its 2012 Q1 report on underwater homeowners across the nation. See Despite Home Value Gains, Underwater Homeowners Owe $1.2 Trillion More than Homes’ Worth

Though the report covers the nation, Nevada was mentioned specifically in the press release. Whereas nearly a third, 31.4 percent, of U.S. homeowners are underwater on their mortgages; Nevada’s percentage homeowners with negative equity is more than double that at 66.9 percent.

On a state level, Nevada’s 66.9 percent of all homeowners with mortgages underwater is the highest, with Arizona (52.3 percent), Georgia (46.8 percent), Florida (46.3 percent) and Michigan (41.7 percent) rounding out the top-five states with highest percentages of homeowners in negative equity.

The report contains a table showing 2012 Q1 data for the largest metropolitan areas; but also new this quarter, Zillow has launched a cool data visualization tool that shows levels of negative equity across the country, down to the ZIP code. The Zillow visualization can be found here: http://www.zillow.com/visuals/negative-equity/.

I’ve used the tool to extract the percentage of underwater homeowners by zip code for areas in and around Reno-Sparks. These figures can be found in the table below.

zip code area % of homes underwater Zillow Home Value Index Q1 2012
89506 Reno 77% $106,900
89408 Fernley 77% $81,700
89508 Cold Springs 74% $125,200
89433 Sun Valley 73% $103,400
89431 Sparks 71% $82,300
89502 Reno 67% $98,500
89512 Reno 66% $60,500
89436 Sparks 64% $166,700
89521 Reno 62% $197,800
89503 Reno 62% $115,800
89434 Sparks 61% $121,500
89441 Sparks 60% $200,000
89440 Dayton 58% n/a
89523 Reno 57% $184,000
89509 Reno 47% $201,000
89704 Gerlach 45% $194,200
89511 Reno 41% $346,800
89451 Incline Village 41% $385,300
89510 Sparks 40% $214,500
89439 Verdi-Mogul 39% $270,500
89423 Minden 37% $222,900
89519 Reno 36% $298,600

While I did not find one zip code that exhibited a smaller percentage than the U.S. average of 31.4 percent, I found a great disparity across local zip codes – with some zip codes showing more than double the underwater rate of other zip codes.

6 comments

  1. Norton

    This is the perecntage of people with a mortgage who are upside down. So for all the zip codes combined the percentage is about 57%. That means of all the people who have a mortgage, about 43% have some equity or are at least at break even.

    Guy, do you know what percentage of houses in Washoe County are owned free and clear?

  2. Guy Johnson

    Norton, sorry, I do not know the answer to that question.

  3. MikeZ

    Holy crap!

  4. Don

    Those numbers are considerably better than a couple of years ago. 89511 & 89509 got hit the hardest with up to 60%+ upsidedown and many still in that situation. I recently came across the top ten states with foreclosures on bankrate.com and Nevada still number one with 1 in 300 homes in forclosure currently ( May 2012 ) and a Forbes current ranking ( May 2012 ) of Reno in the top five cities with foreclosure filings beating out Las Vegas. AB284 may have slowed foreclosures, but Reno & Nevada still near the top in the country.
    but Reno & Nevada still near the top in the Country.

  5. PursuitAce

    The question is what percent is the average underwater homeowner underwater. 10, 20, 30+…if 100% of homeowners are 1% underwater no one should or would care.

  6. Negative Equity Falls in Q2 | Reno Real Estate Blog

    […] underwater data I reported Q1 data for various zip codes in and around the Reno-Sparks market (see Nevada leads the country in negative equity; more than double the U.S. average). Today I am updating the table contained in that post from May. table.tableizer-table {border: […]

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