Nearly 40 Percent of Homeowners Report Being Under Water

Some 39 percent of homeowners report their home is not worth more than they owe on their mortgage, a new Rasmussen Reports survey found.

The poll of 749 homeowners nationwide also found that 47 percent said their home is worth more than they owed on their mortgage while 14 percent are undecided.

The survey conducted September 16 through 17 also found that overall attitudes about the housing market remain relatively pessimistic.

The findings come as reports show that housing prices are on the rise. The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index for July showed an annual gain of 1.2 percent in the price of single-family homes across 20 cities, The New York Times reported.

The finding showed that prices rose 1.6 percent from June, the third consecutive month that gains were reported in the 20 cities. Reports also show that prices also increased in lower priced homes.

Data from Zillow, a real estate web site, reported that the gap between price gains in the higher end and the lower end of the market has narrowed considerably.

“It’s less that the top tier is cooling than that the bottom tier is strengthening,” Stan Humphries, the chief economist at Zillow told the Times. “The bulk of the recovery is due to the changes in the bottom and middle tiers.”

However, proving the real estate adage that location, location, location is everything; Case-Shiller reported that housing prices at the lower end were still lagging in Atlanta and Chicago. The Times also reported that in Phoenix, which has experienced a strongest recovery in house prices, homes under $127,000 had gains of over 33 percent in the last year while the top tier, housing selling above $211,000, had an increase of over 11 percent.