Of nearly 49.9 million mortgaged properties in the United States at the end of the fourth quarter of 2014, about 5.4 million have a mortgage amount that is greater than the value of the property. These underwater or negative equity properties represent 10.8% of all mortgaged properties in the country. At the end of the third quarter, 10.7% of all mortgaged properties were underwater.

The aggregate value of negative equity rose by $7 billion in the fourth quarter to a nationwide total of $348.8 billion. The data were released Tuesday by research firm CoreLogic.

Some 20% of all mortgaged properties have positive equity below 20%, and 2.8% had less than 5% positive equity at the end of the third quarter. These levels are slightly higher than at the end of the third quarter of 2014, when 19% of all properties had positive equity below 19% and 2.6% had less than 5% positive equity.

CoreLogic’s chief economist noted:

The share of homeowners that had negative equity increased slightly in the fourth quarter of 2014, reflecting the typical weakness in home values during the final quarter of the year. Our CoreLogic [home price index] dipped 0.7 percent from September to December…. However, from December-to-December the CoreLogic index was up 4.8% and the negative equity share fell by 2.6 percentage points.

The five states with the highest percentage of homes with negative equity are Nevada (24.2%), Florida (23.2%), Arizona (18.7%), Illinois (16.2%) and Rhode Island (15.8%). Just the first four of these states account for about 32% of all underwater mortgages.

The five states with the highest percentages of homes with positive equity are Texas (97.4%), Alaska (97.2%), Montana (97.0%), Hawaii (96.3%) and North Dakota (96.2%).

The five metropolitan areas with the highest percentage of properties with negative equity are Tampa-St. Pete-Clearwater, Fla. (24.8%), Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Ariz. (18.8%), Chicago-Naperville-Arlington Heights, Ill. (18.5%), Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. (14.8%) and Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, Ga. (14.6%).

The five metro areas with the highest percentage in positive equity are Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, Texas (97.7%), Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas (97.1%), Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine, Calif. (96.4%), Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, Ore. (96.4%) and Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colo. (96.2%).

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