The amount of equity homeowners hold grew by $726 billion, or 10.8%, in the third quarter of 2016 versus the year before, according to data from CoreLogic.
On a quarterly basis, the equity in residential properties secured by mortgages rose by $227 billion, or 3.1%, CoreLogic reported Thursday. The increase pulled 384,000 borrowers out of negative equity.
Altogether, 93.7% of all mortgaged properties are now in positive equity. The rise in home equity was mainly the result of price appreciation.
"Home equity rose by $12,500 for the average homeowner over the last four quarters," Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic, said in a news release. "There was wide geographic variation with homeowners in California, Oregon and Washington gaining an average of at least $25,000 in home equity wealth, while owners in Alaska, North Dakota and Connecticut had small declines, on average."
As of the third quarter, Texas had the highest percentage of homes with positive equity of any state at 98.4%. Nevada had a greater share of its properties in negative equity than any other state at 14.2%.
