I can not start a poll because I am not a paying member. But I am curious as to how many people owe more on their house than what it is worth. I am only 29 years old (so I have not had a lifetime to gain equity) but my house is easily worth twice as much as what I owe. Part of the reason I guess is that I put 40% down when I bought my house (and I am buying it on a 15 year loan --thank you Dave Ramsey). I must have been the only person in the world who put a big down payment on my house... For their to be the amount of negative equity homes in the market that the media is saying there must have been a but load of people doing $0 down.

I really wish I could start a poll because I want to see if the percentage here reflects what the TV is saying about our nation.

Is your house worth more or less than what you owe?

 

... BTW, I know someone is going to rag on me for putting a 70k down payment on my house and not being a paying member on S2ki. But I'm a tight ass... I'll admit it.

 

nope. my wife and i were very fortunate... we bought our place in december on a short sale for $100k less than appraised value. only put 3% down on an FHA loan. Already refinancing at 65% loan to value at 4.75% on a 30 year fixed. GOOD TIMES!

 

You're profile says you're in Austin. Even if you had a 0-down loan, you probably wouldn't be underwater. Property values in TX haven't been affected like other parts of the country, so I'd say that you really don't have the proper perspective to judge some of those people. I wouldn't be surprised if there are places in this country where you could've put 40% down and still be under water (Vegas, Cali, maybe?)

I'm in the Dallas area, bought my house 4 years ago, and the appraised value is currently higher than what I paid. Of course, I'm not sure if I could actually get that price if I had to sell, so I'm not sure that the appraised value really means much in today's market. Regardless, I'm not upside down on my loan.

 

Just bought my house 4 mths ago and put 30% down so unless values have plummeted in my neighborhood, I should be ok.

 

mxt_77... I hear you... I guess that is the point of this thread... I'm trying to figure out why my perspective is off. Either Austin is doing really really good compared to the nation... or there are just some places doing really really bad that is throwing off this bell curve. I have a hard time believing homes have dropped in value by 40%... i.e. if someone put 40% down and now have negative equity. I need to stop watching the news again... I'm doing okay (I'm self employed) but every time I watch the news I get "worried".

 

I bought a foreclosure 2 years ago and did a bunch of work to it mostly myself, i'm okay.

 

Not exactly scientific, but check out this Las Vegas "Home Value Index" from Zillow:
http://www.zillow.com/local-info/NV-...as-home-value/

According to that, average home values peaked around 315K, and now the average is around 225K. That's almost a 30% drop. So, even if somebody put down 10 or 20% on their home, they could still be well underwater.

Edit:
For comparison, here's the one for Austin:
http://www.zillow.com/local-info/TX-Austin-home-value/
It's down barely 5% off its peak, and I'm guessing you didn't buy your house at the peak of home prices.

 

Here in the Bay Area.. they were handing out home loans left and right. For people with sub-par credit and zero down (down payment rolled in to a second mortgage) to boot!

On the news lately, they've been having stories of people who owe $500k on a house, that is now only worth $150k. Why do they owe so much? 2 mortgages (no down payment) and they bought 2-3 years ago at the PEAK of the housing market

FWIW, when my parents got foreclosed on (they did what I mentioned above) they bought the house for 650ishk and when they were foreclosed on, the property was only worth like $490k and probably wouldn't sell for more than $425k.

 

wow! ... okay you guys aren't helping. haha ...you are confirming what the media is saying. (now I need to turn off the TV and shut down this thread).

I am thankful I do not have negative equity and if any of you on here do, I pray that you have a stable job.

I know zillow isn't always accurate, but that zillow chart for vegas is not pretty!