Homeowner equity rises in Arkansas

If you are an Arkansas homeowner, is your mortgage less than half of your home’s value? Then you are equity rich.

Nearly 35% of all homeowners in the state are, according to real estate data provider Attom Data Solutions’ second-quarter 2022 U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report. That’s up from 22.2% a year ago.

The report also shows that just 5.8% of mortgaged homes in Arkansas, or one in 17, were considered seriously underwater in the second quarter of 2022. That’s down from 8.8% a year ago.

Nationally, more than 48% of homeowners with a mortgage were equity-rich in the second quarter of 2022 — owing the lender less than 50% of the price they could sell their home. That is up from 34.4% a year ago.

Home equity at the end of the second quarter was a record $27 trillion. According to Attom, although the housing market has cooled recently, the percentage of equity-rich properties will likely keep increasing.

“While home price appreciation appears to be slowing down due to higher interest rates on mortgage loans, it seems likely that homeowners will continue to build on the record amount of equity they have for the rest of 2022,” said Rick Sharga, Attom’s executive vice president of market intelligence.

The report also breaks down home equity among 107 metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) with a population greater than 500,000. Of the 96,402 mortgaged properties in Northwest Arkansas, 48,783 (50.6%) are considered equity-rich. That’s nearly double the equity-rich figure a year ago (27.7%).

In central Arkansas, where there are 135,052 mortgaged properties, 34,766 (25.7%) are considered equity-rich. That’s up from 17.5% a year ago.

Click here for a link to the full report.