NY Federal Reserve Analysis: Underwater Borrowers Reduce Effective Homeownership Rate; Portland Decline LESS than US.

Study is HERE

Study says that after using FHFA negative equity borrower data, the "effective" current US home ownership rate is reduced from 67.2%, to 61.6%. That is a percentage point decline of 5.6 (I calculate that this is an actual percentage decline of 8.3%).

Portland Effective HO Effective Rate Decline is LESS than US, Because of Lower Percentage of Underwater Borrowers.

Portland's Effective HO rate decline is LESS than the US decline because Portland has had a lower percentage of underwater borrowers.  Portland's HO current rate of 67.6% declines to 63.3% after subtracting underwater borrowers. That is a percentage point decline of 4.4 (I calculate that this is an actual percentage decline of 6.4%). 

Note that if the % of underwater borrowers INCREASES in Portland metro area Portland's decline in effective home ownership rate would also INCREASE.

Table below shows the US and Portland metro data; Portland and other metro data can be found on page 6 of the report:

	Current HO Rate	FHFA Effective HO Rate
Portland	67.6	63.3
Percentage POINT Decline		4.4
Actual % Decline		-6.4%
United States	67.2	61.6
Percentage Point Decline		5.6
Actual % Decline		-8.3%

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.