
The Zillow Negative Equity Report is released on a quarterly basis, and calculates the share and number of homeowners in an area that are underwater on their mortgage, owing more than the value of their home. The data in the report incorporates mortgage data from TransUnion.
What is negative equity?
What is Negative Equity? Definition | Zillow Home equity is how much of your home's value you actually own versus the amount that is financed. If your home's value drops below your outstanding loan balance, you have negative equity. Have questions about buying, selling or renting during COVID-19?
Do interest-only mortgages increase the risk of negative equity?
Interest-only mortgages can increase the risk of negative equity. This is because you only ever pay the interest on the amount you borrow, rather than repaying the mortgage sum. The total amount you owe is repaid at the end of the mortgage.
What is'negative equity'?
BREAKING DOWN 'Negative Equity'. Home equity is the value of a homeowner’s interest in their home. It is the real property’s current market value less any liens or encumbrances that are attached to that property. This value fluctuates over time as payments are made on the mortgage and market forces play on the current value of that property.
What is positive equity in a house loan?
Because the person did not pay the entire amount of the house, but he still owns the property, it counts as positive equity. Positive equity can grow when the value of the borrowed asset goes up or the amount of the loan owed to the bank in lieu of the asset goes down.

What does negative equity mean?
What is negative equity? When a homeowner has negative equity, that’s also known as being underwater. It means she owes more money on her mortgage than she could make on the sale of her home. As we learned in the last recession, the implications of negative equity for individuals and for the economy can be enormous.
Is negative equity a part of the housing market?
We should be prepared for negative equity to remain a part of the U.S. housing market for a long time to come. It is likely to continue to fall as home values increase, freeing those already relatively close to positive equity. But even as home values close in on peak levels reached during the housing boom, those deeply underwater homeowners still face a long wait before returning to a positive balance on their home loans. We’re likely in store for a kind of new environment in housing, one in which the longer-term level of negative equity is substantially higher than the roughly 3ish percent we’d expect to see in a historically “normal” market. Negative equity cut the housing market very deeply, and its scars are likely to be long-lasting.
Why is there negative equity?
For assets, negative equity can appear due to a reduction in the asset value or for companies if there is a large dividend paid, or there are significant accumulated losses.
What is negative shareholder equity?
Negative shareholder equity is a similar concept, whereby the company incurs losses that are greater than the combined value of payments made to shareholders and accumulated earnings from prior periods.
What happens when the value of the asset remains constant but the amount of the loan balance goes up?
It can be due to the borrower not making sufficient repayments to the lender. 2. Negative shareholder equity. For listed companies, at times, a negative balance can appear for the equity line-item of the balance sheet.
What is negative amortization?
Another related concept is negative amortization. It happens when the value of the asset remains constant, but the amount of the loan balance goes up. It can be due to the borrower not making sufficient repayments to the lender.
What does a negative balance mean on a balance sheet?
It happens when the company’s liabilities exceed its assets, and in more financial terms, the company’s incurred losses that are greater than the combined value of payments made to shareholders and accumulated earnings from previous periods.
What is negative net worth?
Negative net worth. Net worth is used in the context of individuals. A person who has negative equity is said to have a negative net worth, which essentially means that the person’s liabilities exceed the assets he owns. A common example of people who have a negative net worth are students with an education line of credit.
When does positive equity grow?
Positive equity can grow when the value of the borrowed asset goes up or the amount of the loan owed to the bank in lieu of the asset goes down.
What is negative equity?
key takeaways. Negative equity occurs when the value of real estate property falls below the outstanding balance on the mortgage used to purchase that property. Negative equity is colloquially referred to as "being underwater.". Negative equity often results with the bursting of a housing bubble, a recession, or a depression—anything ...
What is home equity?
Home equity is the value of a homeowner’s interest in their home. It is the real property’s current market value less any liens or encumbrances that are attached to that property. This value fluctuates over time as payments are made on the mortgage and market forces play on the current value of that property.
How does home equity work?
Home equity can be accumulated by either a down payment made during the initial purchase of the property or with mortgage payments, as a contracted portion of that payment will be assigned to bring down the outstanding principal still owed. Owners can benefit from property value appreciation as it will cause their equity value to increase. ...
What causes real estate values to fall?
depression —anything that causes real estate values to fall. For instance, say a buyer financed the purchase a $400,000 home with a mortgage of $350,000. If the market value of that home the next year tumbles to $275,000, the owner has negative equity in the home because the mortgage attached to the property is $75,000 greater than ...
Is a negative equity home a debt?
The sale of a home with negative equity becomes a debt to the seller, as they would be liable to their lending institution for the difference between the attached mortgage and the sale of the home.
What does negative equity mean in a house?
Moving home and negative equity. Negative equity can mean selling your home for less than the value of the mortgage you took out to buy it. This is because you’ll have an outstanding amount of money on the mortgage that you have to pay back after the sale. If you don’t have savings or other funds available, it may be difficult to pay this ...
What is negative equity?
Negative equity is when your property becomes worth less than the remaining value of your mortgage. To be in negative equity, the value of your house must fall below the amount you still owe on your mortgage. How to work out your equity. Equity is the value of your property that you own outright. To work out your equity, you’ll need to know:
How does negative equity happen?
People often find themselves in negative equity due to falling house prices. When prices fall, the number of households in negative equity tends to rise. It’s a bigger problem during recessions, when house prices can experience bigger drops.
Why is interest only mortgage bad?
Interest-only mortgages. Interest-only mortgages can increase the risk of negative equity. This is because you only ever pay the interest on the amount you borrow , rather than repaying the mortgage sum. The total amount you owe is repaid at the end of the mortgage.
What happens if the value of your home is less than the amount you owe on your mortgage?
Compare the valuation and the amount you owe. If the value of your property is less than the amount you owe on your mortgage, you are in negative equity.
How to work out equity?
To work out your equity, you’ll need to know: The current value of your house by getting a valuation. How much you still owe on your mortgage.
What happens if you don't pay off your mortgage?
Because you’re not paying off your mortgage amount, you don’t build equity in your property, so a fall in property prices could put you at risk.

Negative Equity – Implications
Example of Negative Equity in The Real World
- Figure 2 illustrates an example of how to compute negative equity in the real world. A person buys a car that is worth $50,000 in the market, and he finances it using a loan with an interest rate of 5%, which needs to be paid over five years. Using the given data, we can build a loan amortizationschedule similar to that in Figure 3 (some rows are h...
More Resources
- CFI is the official provider of the global Commercial Banking & Credit Analyst (CBCA)™certification program, designed to help anyone become a world-class financial analyst. To keep advancing your career, the additional CFI resources below will be useful: 1. Personal Finance 2. Projecting Balance Sheet Line Items 3. Statement of Retained Earnings 4. Tangible N…