D&N quoted http://www.cnbc.com/id/42955097:
The number of homeowners under water -- or, those who owe more on the
mortgage than their house is currently worth -- amounted to 28.4
percent of single-family homeowners, representing a peak since Zillow
began calculating the data in 2009.
It's not explicitly clear if this is a percentage of *all*
"single-family homeowners" or of those with mortgages. The latter
interpretation might be explained by the fact that the datum apparently
originates with the real estate marketing industry for which wholly
owned houses not for sale don't, conceptually, exist.
The former interpretation, though, means that things are worse, far
worse, that the datum superficially indicates. The so-called boomer
generation, a disproportionate bulge in the demographic profile, is
now approaching retirement. It's a reasonable surmise that typical
home owners in that group have no mortgage at all. That might mean
that something like *half* of mortgage holders are financial
submariners.
The surmise doesn't take into account the possibility that a notion of
"typical" may be distorted by a trend to take out a mortgage to cover
medical expenses in an aging cohort or that it may have become
fashionable to mortgage a paid-for house to cover expensive retirement
hobbies (such as cruises) or just to keep visibly ahead of the
Joneses.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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