$2 Trillion in Property Loss Potential

Zillow.com reports that U.S. homeowners could lose more than $2 trillion in property value this year, resulting in approximately 11.7 million households owing more on their mortgages than the real estate is worth. U.S. home values fell by $1.9 trillion this year through the end of the third quarter, surpassing the $1.24 trillion lost in all of last year. Stan Humphries, Zillow's vice president of data and analytics, states, "Nationwide, we haven't had a drop like this probably since the Great Depression, in terms of how much value has been taken out of the housing market. The amount of negative equity that you're seeing out there right now is so great that it now has its own dynamic of causing people to walk away from their homes." This year's five worst-performing housing markets are all in California.