Homeownership equity at its highest level. CoreLogic research.

CoreLogic Research:

Homeownership Equity at its highest level

Home values have been appreciating at a stunning rate but suddenly made a jump during the Covid-19 period giving the U.S. homeowners vast equity in their homes.

According to the quarterly report from CoreLogic, leading global property information, analytics, and data-enabled solutions provider the annual price gains for homes averaged 15% in 2021 an increase of 9% year-over-year.

The report claims that U.S. homeowners with mortgages have seen their equity increase by a total of over $3.2 trillion since the fourth quarter of 2020.

The reason this is, 2021 was marked by increased buyer demand, record-low supply, and extremely low mortgage rates which all contributed to these hefty equity gains for homeowners. Many buyers are still flocking the markets making bidding wars the norm of the day. Interestingly, desperate buyers are competing for head to head with cash investors in hot markets. This is how crazy it has gotten.

But that’s not the only anomaly we’ve seen so far! The housing market all over the country is still showing significant activity even in winter months despite them being historically the slowest season for the housing market.

“While we expect this year’s buyers will eventually see some relief from the 2021 frenzy, home shoppers continue to face challenging conditions in the early days of 2022,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com. “In fact, last week’s home price and time on market trends suggest competition intensified.”

According to CoreLogic, the home price growth reached their highest levels in more than 4 decades pushing the home equity to a new record. Additionally, the company reports that some 70,000 properties regained equity in the third quarter of 2021, providing a much-needed barrier against foreclosure for the 1.2 million borrowers who had reached the end of their forbearance in September.

“Not only have equity gains helped homeowners more seamlessly transition out of forbearance and avoid a distressed sale, but they’ve also enabled many to continue building their wealth,” said Frank Martell, president, and CEO of CoreLogic. “This financial reserve will be especially helpful for homeowners looking to fund renovation projects.”

The housing market saw relatively few sellers in 2021 and for those who listed their homes,

they did get good returns. Data from ATTOM, a National property database shows that the profit on a typical home sale was just over $94,000. This is up 45% from the profit in 2020 and up 71% from the pre-pandemic profits.

“Households that escaped job losses from the pandemic dove into the market, in large part as a response to the crisis,” said Todd Teta, chief product officer at ATTOM. “No doubt, there are warning signs that the surge could slow down this year. But 2021 will go down as one of the greatest years for sellers and one of the toughest for buyers.”

It was the highest level of profit since 2008 which was the last housing boom built on faulty mortgages and homeowners with little equity on their homes. The homeowners that were not listing their properties also gained equity too. About 42% of homeowners were considered equity rich in 2021 which means their mortgage was less than half the value of their properties.

Generally, the more the equity, the more the spending power should a consumer decide to use all that wealth. Personal savings shot up during the pandemic according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and is coming back to pre-pandemic levels.

“A shift to an equity-centric market is already underway, and as of the third quarter of last year, borrowers were pulling more cash out of their homes than they had in 14 years,” said Andy Walden, vice president of enterprise research and strategy with Black Knight.