Rising home prices and conservative borrowing have today’s homeowners sitting on a record amount of potential cash, CNBC reports.
Today’s mortgage holders saw their home equity increase 4.8% annually at the end of the second quarter, which is a collective gain of nearly $428 billion, according to CoreLogic. The average homeowner with a mortgage gained $4,900 in home equity in just one year, which could improve a lot of household balance sheets.
However, some homeowners are gaining equity faster than others. In Idaho, homeowner equity increased by an average of $22,100; in Wyoming, homeowners gained an average of $20,400; and in Nevada, gained an average of $16,800.
Homeowners in California, Washington state and Louisiana saw minimal gains in equity, and those in Connecticut and North Dakota actually lost home equity.
The amount of equity available for homeowners nationwide reached a record-high of $6.3 trillion, according to a separate report from Black Knight in August. It defines tappable equity as the share of equity available for homeowners with mortgages to borrow against while still holding 20% equity in the home.
Homeowners, however, are sitting on their equity more than they have in the past.
Just $54 billion in equity was withdrawn in the first quarter of this year. That is the lowest volume in four years and the lowest share of available equity tapped since Black Knight began tracking the metric in 2008. Read the full report.
