Underwater

A number of houses in Southern Queensland are literally underwater at the moment, with torrential rains bringing huge floods. But we've just discovered that a lot of houses in the United States are underwater in a different way.

We had visitors last weekend from Reno in Nevada, a state with a population of around 2.7 million. Beth is a broker with Morgan Stanley and she commutes to the adjoining state of California to work at her office in San Francisco. Nevada and California, along with Arizona, Florida and Michigan are the states hardest hit by the housing bust in America.

After she arrived on the Diamond Princess cruise boat, we showed Beth around our fair city and our various house styles - villas, bungalows, cottages and in-fill townhouse developments. She mentioned how so many houses in Nevada were "underwater" and explained that this is the term realtors and bankers use to indicate that the size of the mortgage is higher than the value of the home. The term we use is here is "negative equity".

Nevada has 13% unemployment and 70% of its homeowners with a mortgage are "underwater", so the problem is enormous. Having no job and being "underwater" are the 2 biggest drivers of foreclosure and handing the house keys back to the bank.