Sonoma County had 29,000 homeowners who owed more than their homes were worth in the third quarter, CoreLogic reported Tuesday.
An estimated 28 percent of county homes with mortgages were underwater in the third quarter, unchanged from the second quarter. Another 4.6 percent of borrowers, or 4,800, had less than 5 percent equity in their homes.
Nationally 10.7 million borrowers were underwater, down slightly from 10.9 million in the previous quarter. That amounts to 22 percent of homes with mortgages.
The figure includes 2 million Californians, or nearly 30 percent of the state’s homeowners with mortgages. However, for the first time since CoreLogic began tracking the issue in 2009, the Golden State dropped out of the top five states with the highest rates of negative equity.
The five are Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Michigan and Georgia. Together they have 41 percent of their home borrowers with negative equity.
— Robert Digitale