One of three metro mortgages underwater

One of every three homeowners in the metro Atlanta area owe more on their loans than their houses are worth, according to data collected by a California firm.

Mark Fleming, chief economist with CoreLogic, said when homeowners are "underwater" on their loans, it retards their ability to refinance at more favorable interest rates and it slows sales in neighborhoods where there are many homeowners stuck in that situation.

Thirty percent of all Georgia homes are underwater, CoreLogic estimates, and the number in metro Atlanta is higher, with nearly 35 percent of mortgages showing negative equity. Those percentages have crept up about a point since the beginning of 2010.

CoreLogic gathered data from 85 percent of outstanding home loans in the U.S. and used a computer program to estimate home values to reach its conclusions. It does the estimate quarterly.

--Christopher Quinn

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