UNDERWATER

What does being "underwater" in your house really mean? The number of underwater homeowners -- those who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are now worth -- has been growing sharply since 2006 as real estate prices have tumbled. By some estimates, between one in six and one in eight homeowners are in that position, most of them folks who bought homes in the past few years or who put down small, or no, down payments.

This, by no means, indicates that all underwater homeowners will default on their mortgages. The issues that culminate in forclosures are primarily social: Loss of a job, divorce, illness, etc. Most homeowners understand the deleterious effect of being foreclosed; and they also understand the value of a home and a mortgage.....even if their homes are "underwater".

Tyler Texas is in an enviable postion with regard to home values. During the entire economically disastrous year of 2008, there were only 368 foreclosures. The vast majority of those (about thirty per month) were tax foreclosures due to deaths with no heirs. So, less than one half of one percent of all homes in Tyler were sold for taxes or foreclosed by lenders. Remarkable! Values have remained steady. And unless somebody really manipulated the system and got a mortgage much greater than the value of the property purchased, we just don't have any upside-down homeowners.