More Americans are house-rich, but they're leaving that cash in the house

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Rising home prices, coupled with conservative borrowing, have today's homeowners sitting on a record amount of potential cash.

Today's mortgage holders saw their home equity increase by 4.8% annually at the end of the second quarter. This is a collective gain of nearly $428 billion, according to CoreLogic. Break it down by borrower, and the average homeowner with a mortgage gained $4,900 in home equity in just one year.

"Borrower equity rose to an all-time high in the first half of 2019 and has more than doubled since the housing recovery started," said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. "Combined with low mortgage rates, this rise in home equity supports spending on home improvements and may help improve balance sheets of households who could take out home equity loans to consolidate their debt."

The amount of equity available for homeowners to tap reached a record high $6.3 trillion, according to a separate report from Black Knight Inc. in August. It defines tappable equity as the share of equity available for homeowners with mortgages to borrow against while still holding 20% equity in the home.

Homeowners, however, are sitting on their equity more than they have in the past.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/more-americans-are-house-rich-but-theyre-leaving-that-cash-in-the-house/ar-AAHJbDt?li=BBnbfcN

Good. Many of those who were underwater on their mortgages in the last recession were there because they had borrowed so much against their homes.

[a kennedy]

1. and it still pisses me off about the damn recession Barack got when he came into office

AND NO ONE GIVES HIM CREDIT for what he did to get the country out of that.

[quaker bill]

2. more than this

I took the cash I had out of equities in the market, and plowed it all into a house. I am sure to my bones that Don the Con will flush the markets at some point. At that point having a paid off house will start looking really good. It is not bad on any day, but on that day it will look even better.

[vsrazdem]

3. My mortage company was constantly calling me to refinance, and finally told them to take me

off their list. No way am I going to refinance at a higher rate and spend money remodeling, only to have the housing market crash again in a year or 2.

[Hoyt]

4. Took cash out once decades ago, but never again.