Portland Mortgage Broker

This morning I read an article on CNBC that really piqued my interest, and I set out on a mission to determine just what it meant to my clients and myself who own properties throughout the Portland & Vancouver areas. The article had to do with the recently completed Negative Equity Data Report by real estate data provider First American Corelogic. Here are some quick bullet points of what I learned after a couple hours of research this morning:

- More than 7.5 million properties, or 18% of all mortgaged properties in the United States, were in a negative equity position as of September 30, 2008.

- An additional 2.1 million properties that are approaching negative equity, which is defined as having less than 5% equity.

- The distribution of negative equity is heavily skewed towards a small number of states. Ranked in descending order of negative equity position, they are Nevada (48%), Michigan (39%), Florida (29%), Arizona (29%), California (27%), Georgia (23%), and Ohio (22%). In addition to this, the top six states account for more than 58% of negative equity mortgages – even though they only account for 36% of all mortgages.

These numbers led me to do some additional digging for more information specific to the Washington and Oregon markets I serve. What I found is that Oregon ranks as the 6th best state on the list, followed closely in 7th place by Washington. In addition to this, the average loan-to-value position in Oregon is 61%. In Washington, it is slightly lower at 59%. This compares to the likes of Nevada at 89%, Michigan at 85%, and Georgia at 77%.

To me, it seems clear that the real estate market remains a very localized component of our economy. As measured by negative equity (the logical outcome of declining property values), Oregon has fared extraordinarily well considering that we’re 6th best in the nation after almost three years of declines in some areas.