Your inside source for real estate, development and construction information serving the counties of Mecklenburg, Union & Iredell VOLUME 106 NUMBER 42 ■ MECKTIMES.COM
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2022 ■ $2.00
$1.5M capital investment comes to renovate Willow Grove Page 2
Construction input costs jump 12.6 percent yearover-year despite dip in september as most materials post double-digit increases over 12 months Page 3
Mortgage rates slow their upward trajectory
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ENNICO: Are you giving advice, guidance, feedback or something else? Page 5
NOVAK: Onboarding: Sink or swim Page 6
Stocks move lower on Wall Street ahead of Fed news on rates Page 7
Homeowner equity keeps growing across U.S. In third quarter despite housing market slowdown ATTOM has released its third-quarter 2022 U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report, which shows that 48.5 percent of mortgaged residential properties in the United States were considered equityrich in the third quarter, meaning that the combined estimated amount of loan balances secured by those properties was no more than 50 percent of their estimated market values. The portion of mortgaged homes that were equity-rich in the third quarter of 2022 increased from 48.1 percent in the second quarter of 2022 and from 39.5 percent in the third quarter of 2021. The latest increase fell below other gains in recent years. But it still marked the 10th straight quarterly rise, and resulted in virtually half of all mortgage payers landing in equity-rich territory. The report found that at least half of all mortgagepayers in 20 states were equity-rich in the third quarter, compared to only seven states a year earlier. “Even though home price appreciation has slowed down dramatically in recent months, homeowners have continued to build equity,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence at
ATTOM. “And it appears that many of those homeowners have decided to stay where they are rather than purchase a new home, and are beginning to tap into that equity, as the number of home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) issued in the second quarter of 2022 rose by 43 percent from the prior year.” The report also shows that just 2.9 percent of mortgaged homes, or one in 35, were considered seriously underwater in the third quarter of 2022, with a combined estimated balance of loans secured by the property of at least 25 percent more than the property’s estimated market value. The latest seriously underwater figure was the same as the 2.9 percent recorded in the prior quarter, but down from 3.4 percent, or one in 29 properties, in the third quarter of 2021. Overall, 94.3 homeowners paying off mortgages had at least some equity built up in the third quarter of this year, compared to 92.9 percent a year earlier and 87.7 percent in the third quarter of 2020. That level rises further when accounting for homeowners who have paid off their mortgages. Across the country, 39 states saw
equity-rich levels increase from the second quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2022, while seriously underwater percentages dipped in 38 states. Year over year, equity-rich levels rose in all 50 states and seriously underwater portions dropped in 43 states. The ongoing, but relatively small, improvement in home equity during the third quarter of 2022 came as the U.S. housing market cooled considerably amid multiple forces that threaten to stifle or reverse an 11-year run of nearly uninterrupted price spikes and equity gains. Largest increases in equity-rich share of mortgages spread across Midwest, Northeast and South Nine of the 10 states where the equityrich share of mortgaged homes increased most from the second quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2022 were in the Midwest, Northeast and South regions of the U.S. The biggest increases were in South Dakota, where the portion of mortgaged homes considered equity-
PLEASE SEE EQUITY ON PAGE 3
“The late-summer mortgage rate reprieve brought a short-lived surge of buyers back into the market, proving that many priced-out home shoppers are poised to buy when homeownership becomes more affordable.”
Jeff Tucker Zillow
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