ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property data, and real estate analytics, has officially published its latest Special Housing Market Impact Risk Report, which highlights county-level housing markets around the United States that are more or less vulnerable to declines, based on home affordability, equity and other measures in the third quarter of 2024.
Going by the available details, this particular report goes on to show how California, New Jersey and Illinois once again had high concentrations of the most-at-risk markets in the country. Beyond that, some parts of Florida were also found to have the same challenge. As for less-vulnerable markets, they were found to be clustered in the South region of the nation.
More on the same would reveal how third-quarter patterns that draw their basis from affordability, underwater mortgages, foreclosures reports by ATTOM, whereas unemployment rates came from federal government data. These patterns, on their part, reveal almost two-thirds of the 50 counties around the U.S. considered most exposed to potential fallbacks were in California, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey.
Moving on, county-level housing markets on the latest list included six in and around Chicago, IL, five in or near New York City and four in southern New Jersey. An estimated 13 of these markets were reported to be in California, mostly inland from the Pacific coast, whereas the rest were spread across Northeast, South, and Midwest.
On the other hand, more than half the markets considered least likely to decline were in Virginia, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Montana and New Hampshire. They even included four in the Washington, DC, area.
“The recent market risk patterns changed a bit in the third quarter, with some new areas making the list of places more or less exposed to downfalls. But the big picture remained pretty much the same around the country as differences in important metrics helped produce varying pockets of vulnerability,” said Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM.
Another detail worth a mention here is how major home-ownership costs (mortgage payments, property taxes and insurance) on median-priced single-family homes and condos were considered seriously unaffordable in 30 of the 50 counties deemed most vulnerable to market drop-offs during the third quarter of 2024. This was also evident in a piece of data which said that home expenses consumed at least 43 percent of average local wages.
However, if we talk on a nationwide level, major expenses on typical homes sold in the third quarter required 34 percent of average local wages, a level also above basic affordability benchmarks.
In essence, the highest percentages of at-risk markets were in Kings County (Brooklyn), NY (108 percent of average local wages needed for major ownership costs); Riverside County, CA (70.2 percent); El Dorado County, CA (outside Sacramento) (66.3 percent); Passaic County, NJ (outside New York City) (65.9 percent) and New York County (Manhattan), NY (65.1 percent).
Talk about mortgages, no less than 6 percent of residential mortgages were underwater, during the third quarter of 2024, across 23 of the 50 most-at-risk counties. The nationwide lowdown claims that 5.5 percent of mortgages fell into this category, with homeowners owing more on their mortgages than the estimated value of their properties.
To expand upon areas with highest underwater rates among the 50 most at-risk counties, they included St. Clair County, IL (outside St. Louis, MO) (15 percent underwater); Tangipahoa Parish, LA (east of Baton Rouge) (13.7 percent); Pinal County, AZ (outside Phoenix) (12.4 percent); Philadelphia County, PA (11.9 percent) and Marion County, FL (outside Gainesville) (11 percent).
Among other things, we must mention that ATTOM’s report assessed counties based on the percentage of homes facing possible foreclosure, the portion with mortgage balances that exceeded estimated property values, the percentage of average local wages required to pay for major home ownership expenses on median-priced single-family homes, and local unemployment rates.
“As with past reports, this one is not meant to suggest any given area is about to fall or is immune from problems. Rather, it spotlights locations that look to be more or less able to withstand significant changes in market conditions,” said Barber.
