Pursuits
Americans Gaining Equity Seen Lifting Housing Market: Mortgages
Newly build homes, including one for sale in the Whisler Ridge housing community from KB Home in Lake Forest, California, U.S., on Monday, Sept. 23, 2013.
Photographer: Patrick T. FallonThis article is for subscribers only.
Rising home prices have made it easier for more than a million Americans to sell their properties, giving a boost to the market.
About 1.2 million more homeowners had 10 percent to 20 percent equity at the end of 2014 compared with a year earlier as their property gained value, according to data released today by research company RealtyTrac Inc. An eight-year high in home prices freed them of mortgages that had been underwater, with loan balances exceeding property values, or barely above it in 2013.