14 Million 'UNDERWATER' U.S. Homeowners

According to Moody's Economy.com, an estimated 13.6 million U.S. borrowers ended 2008 UNDERWATER on their home mortgages. FYI, 'underwater' borrowers refers to those individuals being in the difficult and unfortunate position of currently owing more on the mortgage of their property than the actual underlying value/WORTH of the property itself.


Per the above Wall Street Journal chart, this figure is projected to rise in 2009 and is up from the 11.8 million homeowners that were underwater at the end of 3Q08. Lastly, please note that as recently as 2Q07, the number of underwater homeowners was only 4 million. Since then (...ENTER the July 2007 seismic collapse of the U.S. SUBPRIME mortgage market...), this figure has exploded upwards by nearly 10 million or 250% !


Data Courtesy: Economy.com + The Wall Street Journal