Underwater Homes in SWFL Are A Thing Of The Past!

Posted on Aug 20, 2015

Underwater homes in Southwest Florida are drying up.

The rapid price growth will likely lead to less foreclosures and possibly more sales, since fewer negative-equity homeowners will need to bring cash to the table when they sell their home. In Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, 10,772 homes with a mortgage had negative equity in the first quarter, compared with 15,308 homes last year.

In Cape Coral-Fort Myers, 24,085 mortgaged homes were upside-down, compared with 33,866 the year before. Both areas, however, were in better shape than the Sunshine State as a whole. Florida had the second highest percentage of underwater homes in the country and Nevada had the first. About 4 million Florida homes still remain underwater.

But don’t let that get you down. Nationwide, about 50 million mortgaged homes, are underwater, compared with 49.3 million homes from a year earlier. Negative equity occurs when there’s a drop in a home’s value, a rise in mortgage debt, or both.

But experts say a housing crash, like the one seen in the early 2000s, is not likely to happen again. Tighter underwriting and borrower caution is keeping some of the “whipsaw action” that shook housing markets almost a decade ago at bay.

The Sunshine State has had its ups and downs in the housing industry, but right now, it is in recovery mode—a place where it  will hopefully stay.  Experts have said the time to buy is now!

For information on real estate in Southwest Florida, contact Kim at (239)-214-1039.