Aside from recent sports success, it’s tough to be a Clevelander right now.
The major Ohio city hasn’t bounced back from the housing crisis, with 27.5 percent of homes seriously underwater (which means the loan amount for a home was at least 25 percent higher than the property’s market value), and only 11.8 percent of homeowners are equity rich.
According to MarketWatch, which interpreted data that the National Association of Realtors released in July, Cleveland and eight other cities are being left behind by the rest of the nation. All these cities, including Las Vegas, Chicago, Detroit, and Kansas City, have “seriously underwater” rates well above the 11.9 percent national average, and “equity rich” home percentages much lower than the 22 percent national average.
