Homeowners with mortgages have seen their equity increase 9.4 percent year over year, a gain of almost $775.2 billion since the third quarter of 2017.

Also, the average homeowner gained $12,400 in home equity between the third quarter of 2017 and the third quarter of 2018, according to the Home Equity Report from Corelogic.

While home equity grew in almost every state in the nation, western states experienced the most significant increases. California homeowners gained an average of around $36,500 in home equity, and Nevada homeowners experienced an average increase of approximately $32,600 in home equity.

From the second quarter of 2018 to the third quarter of 2018, the number of homes with negative equity decreased 4 percent to 2.2 million homes, or 4.1 percent of all mortgaged properties. Year over year, the number of mortgaged properties in negative equity fell 16 percent from 2.6 million homes, or 5 percent of all mortgaged properties, in the third quarter of 2018. Fully 63% of Homeowners have a mortgage.

“On average, homeowners saw their home equity increase again this quarter but not nearly as much as in previous quarters,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “During the third quarter, homeowners gained an average of $12,400 compared to the second quarter when the average home equity wealth increase was more than $16,000. This lower year-over-year gain reflects the slowing in appreciation we’ve seen in the CoreLogic Home Price Index.”

[caption id="attachment_7571" align="alignleft" width="294"]  Negative equity has declined year over year.[/caption]

Negative equity, often referred to as being underwater or upside down, applies to borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

Negative equity can occur because of a decline in a home’s value, an increase in mortgage debt or both. Negative equity peaked at 26 percent of residential properties with a mortgage in the fourth quarter of 2009, based on the CoreLogic equity data analysis which began in the third quarter of 2009. 

The national aggregate value of negative equity was around $281.6 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2018. This is down year over year by approximately $2.7 billion, from $279 billion in the third quarter of 2017.

“The number of homes in a negative equity position have remained around 2.2 million for two consecutive quarters this year,” said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Without equity, those homeowners are unable to sell their homes and are more likely to transition from delinquency to foreclosure if they face financial distress.” 

Name: Kristy Fercho

Title: President of Mortgage

Company: Flagstar Bank

Number of Employees She Manages: 1,800

Mortgage Exec Since: 2001

Who Inspires Her: Her father, Willy Williams. In 1969, in the aftermath of the 1968 Mexico Olympics, a tumultuous era for Civil Rights, Dick Clausen, a forward-thinking athletic director at the University of Arizona, selected Williams, as head track coach. It was history in the making because he was the first African American head coach at a major university in the U.S.

On Entering the Mortgage Biz

On Sept. 11, 2001, Fercho was in New York City working in the human relations department of PepsiCo. That horrific experience led her to reconsider her life style, to find more balance between her workaholic, business focus and giving more back to society.

Fercho decided to consider making a career change.

And remembered, something she’d heard a Fannie Mae executive say at a conference she’d attended, “At our company, the mission of funding the American dream was as important as the job.”

That comment intrigued Fercho.

So, she began to identify companies she might like to work for, companies where the mission was as important as the job and compiled a short list of possibilities that included Walt Disney, The American National Red Cross, and of course, Fannie Mae.

Thirty days later, Oct. 11, she was hired to work in the human-resources department for multi-family at Fannie Mae.

Once at Fannie Mae, Fercho’s approach to her job was to become expert at her job and to understood what everyone else did as well. She worked to understand the mortgage business, reading everything she could get her hands on, often into the early morning hours.

As a result, she could make strategy and performance suggestions to executives in meeting--who she found were open to her advice and often implemented her suggestions. She became known within Fannie as someone that understood the business well, knew what would work or wouldn’t work--and was imbued with leadership qualities.

In 2005, Fannie Mae was forced to restate earnings, due to improprieties, which a regulator attributed to the corporate culture of the company. The culture had to be evaluated and changed, and Dan Mudd, the former CEO of the company, asked Fercho to look into it and make recommendations for improving the culture.

She would go on to hold other high-profile positions, including serving as senior vice president for customer delivery, responsible for the strategy and performance of single-family customers in the West, with an acquisition volume of over $300 billion, before joining Flagstar.

Leadership Keys Are Humility, Empathy

Fercho articulated some keys to strong, effective leadership. One key is humility, but more than that it’s a respect for the expertise and insights of her team. In her view, a leader has to put her team in a position to shine and to contribute. A leader can’t know everything, so she makes sure employees have a voice, are given an opportunity to be heard, and better-informed decisions can be made. To that end, Fercho has no problem saying, “I don’t know this that well” and ask the team for help. Or she’ll explain her thinking on a topic and ask them “to step up and challenge my assumptions.”

Second, leadership requires empathy. Place yourself in shoes of employees and consumers. Challenge how you fit and bring in solutions that solve real problems and meet the needs of consumers. To know if the approach is working informally ask questions of borrowers, or take a formal survey.

And then listen to their responses.

Leadership requires creating vision and then teaching people to use their talents, skills and abilities. Leadership is not about you, but about others; always make it about other people. Let people use their talent and abilities to work to an end. You get a better outcome that way. It’s about potential. In contrast, management is more about the specifics of a task at hand.

Synovus Financial Corp. has received regulatory approval from the Federal Reserve and the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance to complete the merger with FCB Financial Holdings Inc., owner of Florida Community Bank.

The merger ofFlorida Community Bank into Synovus is slated to be completed around Jan. 1, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Transition of Florida Community Bank systems, customers, branches, and branding to Synovus is expected during the second quarter of 2019.

“Regulatory approval is the final significant milestone in the merger of FCB and Synovus, and I am proud of the way our respective teams have worked together since the announcement of this transaction,” said Kessel Stelling, chairman and CEO of Synovus. “I am confident our combined companies will continue to meet our commitments to customers, communities, and shareholders while also achieving the growth and financial objectives of the Florida Community Bank acquisition.”

Household Debt Sets Record, Notes Nerd Wallet

Consumers have a collective $13.51 trillion in household debt.

Household debt, now $13.51 trillion, has surpassed the $12.37 trillion owed at the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, according to NerdWallet’s 2018 American Household Credit Card Debt Study.

Since 2008, median income has increased 22%, while the overall cost of living has increased 17%. But over the same period of time, medical costs increased 33 percent, and food purchased away from home increased 27 percent. These swiftly rising expenses could make it more challenging for many Americans to trim spending. Households that hold credit card debt carry an average revolving balance of $6,929, NerdWallet found, including $1,141 each year in interest.

To perform the study, NerdWallet analyzed data from the Federal Reserve and the Census Bureau.