Report: More than 1 in 5 Dallas-area homeowners owe more than house is worth

The number of Dallas-area residents who owe more than their houses are worth is growing.

At the end of 2008, more than one in five Dallas-area homeowners – 21.1 percent – were underwater on their mortgages, according to a report released Wednesday by First American CoreLogic.

That's slightly higher than the U.S. average but well below the percentage of homeowners who have negative equity in states hard-hit in the housing slump, the California-based mortgage analyst said.

In Nevada, for instance, about 55 percent of homeowners with mortgages owe more than the value of their houses. And in Michigan, Arizona and Florida, more than a third are underwater.
The number of Fort Worth-area home mortgage owners who have negative equity, at 24.2 percent, is even higher than the Dallas figure, the researchers said.

The new report is a change from earlier studies that estimated about 16 percent of Dallas-Fort Worth homeowners with mortgages were underwater with their home loans. That was slightly less than the national average.

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