Chicago Has More Underwater Mortgages Than Any Other Big U.S. City
By Mae Rice in News on Jun 9, 2016 6:10PM
Chicago has more underwater mortgages—that is, mortgages where homeowners owe more than the value of their house—than any other big city in the U.S., according to a study real estate website Zillow released this week. We've replaced Las Vegas as number one in this regard, because we... just can't stop... until we're on top. I guess.
Of all Chicago homeowners, 20.3 percent had underwater mortgages given home values in the first quarter of 2016, Zillow reports. This is the highest proportion of any "large housing market" in the country, Zillow reports; at a national level, 12.3 percent of American homeowners had underwater mortgages in Q1 of 2016. Chicago's high level of underwater mortgages is also in keeping with another recent study from real estate site OpenHouse, which found most single-family homes in Chicago are selling at below asking price
Zillow attributes Chicago's ailing housing market to reverberations from the housing crash in the late aughts, triggered by the recession. Though that crash hit coastal cities the hardest, they were quicker to recover; it's now the Rust Belt in the Midwest, which Zillow terms "long-suffering and sluggish," that's still feeling the aftereffects.
Chicago's housing market also might be ailing because people aren't settling down here long term. People move to Chicago frequently, but they also leave a lot.
[h/t Tribune]