Corelogic: 20 percent of Colorado homes underwater

Colorado is tenth in the nation for the percentage of its mortgages that were underwater during the third quarter. According to a report released today by CoreLogic,20 percent of homes with mortgages in Colorado had a "negative equity share."

Of the 1.15 million mortgages outstanding in Colorado, 234,200 of them were underwater, while an additional 88,600, or 7.7 percent of them, were "near" underwater.

Nationwide, 22 percent of loans were underwater during the third quarter and an additional 5 percent were nearly so.

The only states with higher percentages of combined negative equity and near negative equity are Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Georgia, California, Virginia, Ohio and Maryland. This makes Colorado 10th in the nation, although Idaho, Illinois and Utah all have rates very similar to Colorado.

According to the report:

Nevada has the highest negative equity percentage with 58 percent of all of its mortgaged properties underwater, followed by Arizona (47 percent), Florida (44 percent), Michigan (35 percent) and Georgia (30 percent). This is the first quarter that Georgia entered the top five, surpassing California which had been in the top five since tracking began in 2009.

The top five states combined have an average negative equity ratio of 41.4 percent, while the remaining states have a combined average negative equity ratio of 17.6 percent.

Comparisons with the third quarter of 2010:

During the third quarter of 2010, 19.6 of Colorado's mortgages were underwater and an additional 8.1 percent were "near" underwater.

Out of a total of 1.12 million mortgages, 221,000 mortgages were underwater, and an additional 91,000 were "near" underwater.