Of the 1.15 million mortgages outstanding in Colorado, 241,000 of them were underwater, while an additional 86,700, or 7.7 percent of them, were "near" underwater.
Nationwide, 22.8 percent of loans were underwater during the fourth 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, Rhode Island, Idaho and Maryland.
According to the report:
Nevada had the highest negative equity percentage with 61 percent of all of its mortgaged properties underwater, followed by Arizona (48 percent), Florida (44 percent), Michigan (35 percent) and Georgia (33 percent). This is the second consecutive quarter that Georgia was in the top five, surpassing California (30 percent) which previously had been in the top five since tracking began in 2009.
The top five states combined have an average negative equity share of 44.3 percent, while the remaining states have a combined average negative equity share of 15.3 percent
Comparisons with the fourth quarter of 2010:
During the fourth quarter of 2010, 19.8 of Colorado's mortgages were underwater and an additional 8.0 percent were "near" underwater.
Out of a total of 1.12 million mortgages, 224,000 mortgages were underwater, and an additional 90,000 were "near" underwater.
According to the report, from the fourth quarter of 2010 to the fourth quarter of 2011, the total number of properties with mortgages that were underwater increased by 17,600 or 7.8 percent.
Nationwide, over the same period, the number of underwater mortgages rose by 0.2 percent or 32,000.
Notably, many large states with a large number of foreclosures saw the total number of underwater mortgages fall from 2010 to 2011. This happened in California, Nevada and Florida, for example. The fact that Colorado, from 2010 to 2011, experienced a net increase in the number of underwater mortgages may signal that Colorado mortgages, while underwater, are nevertheless foreclosing in smaller numbers.
