Business

Hold Your Breath: Your Metro Detroit Home Could Be Sinking Underwater

February 13, 2013, 5:34 AM

Strap on your life preservers.

You may be one of the folks -- or certainly know someone -- whose home is "underwater."

Nearly one in every two homeowners in Metro Detroit owes more on the house than it is worth, Louis Aguilar of the Detroit News reports.

The trend is shrinking the real estate market in Metro Detroit because a lot of owners are reluctant to put their homes on the market and take a big loss. Metro Detroit ranks 5th in the nation for underwater mortgages with just just under half of homeowners owing at least 25 percent or more on their mortgages than their home is worth, the News reports.

Aguilar writes:

Home sales have been increasing in Metro Detroit, but the shrinking number of homes on the market threatens to choke off the rebound. It has helped to depress the number of available properties to its lowest level in at least six years.

Fewer than 15,000 homes or condos were for sale at the end of December, less than one-third of the properties offered at the end of 2006. And while sales were up last month in most of Metro Detroit, the pinched inventory already is dragging down sales in the city of Detroit.


Read more:  Detroit News


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