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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. A modest rise in negative equity is emerging across parts of the U.S. housing market, but the overall picture remains far more stable than anything resembling the Global Financial Crisis. Having negative equitycommonly known as being underwatermeans a homeowner owes more on their mortgage than the homes current market value. According to ICE Mortgage Technology, just 1.0% of U.S. mortgages were underwater in April 2025. By October 2025, that share rose to 1.6%. Thats an uptick, but still extremely low by historical standards. For comparison, during the worst of the foreclosure crisis in September 2009, 23.0% of homeowner mortgages were underwater, per CoreLogic/First American. Where the pressure is building The recent rise in underwater mortgages is concentrated in three areas: VA and FHA loans: These programs typically involve lower down payments, which means borrowers start with thinner equity cushions. When home prices slip even modestly, these homeowners can move underwater more quickly than conventional borrowers. Recent vintages: Borrowers who purchased in 2023, 2024, or 2025often at elevated price levels and still-tight affordabilityhave had limited time to pay down their balances. If their local markets have cooled, theyre more exposed to negative equity. Metros with post-boom corrections: The markets seeing the most underwater pressure tend to be in the Southwest, Southeast, and Westregions that experienced some of the sharpest run-ups during the Pandemic Housing Boom and then the clearest price reversals. Metros with elevated underwater shares include places like Cape Coral, Lakeland, North Port, Palm Bay, Jacksonville, and Tampa in Florida; Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio in Texas; and Colorado Springs. Why negative equity remains rare nationally Despite localized corrections, underwater mortgages remain scarce nationwide. Three major factors explain why. National home prices are still near record highs. While certain Sun Belt and Western markets have given back some of their pandemic gains, national home price indices remain close to peak levels. Those broad gains continue to cushion the national equity picture, even as some metros soften. The amortization benefit of ultra-low pandemic mortgage rates. Millions of homeowners locked in 2%3% fixed rates in 2020 and 2021. Because lower rates allocate more of each payment toward principal from day one, these borrowers have built equity unusually quickly. As of late 2024, more than half of outstanding mortgage holders had rates below 4%, accelerating their debt paydown and widening their equity buffers. Few buyers purchased at the exact peak. Even in markets that have corrected, such as Austin or Cape Coral, only a small slice of homeowners bought at the absolute top in early 2022. Most owners purchased earlierand at lower pricesleaving them well above water today.
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This years U.N. climate conference in Brazil had many unique aspects that could have been part of a historic outcome. COP30, as its called, was hosted in Belem, a city on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, a crucial regulator of climate and home to many Indigenous peoples who are both hit hard by climate change and are part of the solution. It had the heft of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, an influential and charismatic leader on the international stage known for his ability to bring people together. And encouraged by Lulas rousing speeches in the summits beginning days, more than 80 nations called for a detailed road map for the world to sharply reduce the use of gas, oil, and coal, the main drivers of climate change. In the end, none of that mattered. The final decision announced Saturday, which included some tangible things like an increase in money to help developing nations adapt to climate change, was overall watered-down compared to many conferences in the past decade and fell far short of many delegates’ expectations. It didn’t mention the words fossil fuels, much less include a timeline to reduce their use. Instead of being remembered as historic, the conference will likely further erode confidence in a process that many environmentalists and even some world leaders have argued isnt up to the challenge of confronting global temperature rise, which is leading to more frequent and intense extreme weather events like floods, storms, and heat waves. The criticism was withering and came from many corners. A climate decision that cannot even say fossil fuels is not neutrality, it is complicity, said Panama negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez. Science has been deleted from COP30 because it offends the polluters. Even those who saw some positives were quick to say they were looking toward the future. Climate action is across many areas, so on the whole it is a mixed bag. They could have done much, much more, said Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development. All eyes are already turning to COP31, added Nacpil, referring to next year’s conference, which will be held in Turkey. High expectations for COP30 Saturday’s final resolution was the culmination of three years of talk, from measured optimism to hoopla, about a Conference of the Parties, as the summit is known, that could restore confidence in the ability of multilateral negotiations to tackle climate change. It was even called a COP of truth. From the time Lula was reelected in October 2022, he began pitching his vision of hosting a climate summit for the first time in the Amazon. By 2023, the U.N. had confirmed Brazil’s bid to host it in Belem. The choice of Belem, a coastal city in northeast Brazil, raised many questions, both in Brazil and in many countries, because Belem doesn’t have the infrastructure of other Brazilian cities such as Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo. For Lula, that was the point: This was a chance for the world to get a taste of the Amazon, truly understand what was at stake, and a chance for thousands of Indigenous peoples, who live across the vast territory shared by many South American nations, to participate. By the time the conference began Nov. 6 with two days of world leaders’ speeches, Lula was able to change the subject from Belem, in large part by laying out a vision of what the conference could be. Earth can no longer sustain the development model based on the intensive use of fossil fuels that has prevailed over the past 200 years, Lula said Nov. 7, adding: The fossil fuel era is drawing to a close.” Words like those, coming from the leader who has both curbed deforestation in the Amazon and unabashedly supported oil exploration in it, raised hopes among many delegates, scientists, and activists. Here was Lula, the ultimate pragmatist from a major oil-producing country, which gets most of its energy for domestic uses from renewables like hydropower, pushing a major change. Previous naming of fossil fuels In late 2023, during COP28 in Dubai, the final resolution declared the world needed to transition away from fossil fuels. The past two years, though, nothing had been done to advance that. Indeed, instead of phasing away, greenhouse gas emissions worldwide continue to rise. Now at COP30, there was talk of a road map to fundamentally changing world energy systems. A few days before the talks concluded, there were signs that even Lula, arguably Brazil’s most dominating political figure of the past 25 years, was tempering his expectations. In a speech Wednesday night, he made the case that climate change was an urgent threat that all people needed to pay attention to. But he was also careful to say that nations should be able to transition to renewable energies at their own pace, in line with their own capacities, and there was no intention to impose anything on anybody.” Negotiators would lose much of Thursday, as a fire at the venue forced evacuations. An outcome that many nations blasted By Friday, the European Union, along with several Latin American and Pacific Island nations and others, were flatly rejecting the first draft of a resolution that didn’t identify fossil fuels as the cause of climate change or have any timeline to move away from them. After 10 years, this process is still failing, Maina Vakafua Talia, minister of environment for the small Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, said in a speech Friday, talking about the decade since the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set international goals to limit temperature rise. After an all-nighter from Friday into Saturday, the revised resolution, which U.N. officials called the final, did not include a mention of fossil fuels. Environmental activists decried the influence of major oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia, which historically have fought against proposals that put a timeline on reducing oil. When delegates met Saturday afternoon for the final plenary, COP30 President André Corra do Lago gaveled in the text while also promising to continue the discussion of fossil fuels and work with Colombia on a road map that could be shared with other countries. Technically, Brazil holds the presidency of the climate talks until the summit in Turkey next year. That was little consolation for several dozen nations that complained, including some, such as Colombia, that flatly rejected the outcome. Thank you for your statement,” do Lago would say after each one. “It will be noted in the report. ___ The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Peter Prengaman, Associated Press Associated Press reporters Seth Borenstein, Melina Walling, and Anton Delgado contributed to this report.
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Christmas went on the auction block this week in Pennsylvania farm country, and there was no shortage of bidders.About 50,000 Christmas trees and enough wreaths, crafts and other seasonal items to fill an airplane hangar were bought and sold by lots and on consignment at the annual two-day event put on at the Buffalo Valley Produce Auction in Mifflinburg.Buyers from across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic were there to supply garden stores, corner lots and other retail outlets for the coming rush of customers eager to bring home a tree most commonly a Fraser fir or to deck the halls with miles of greenery.Bundled-up buyers were out in chilly temperatures to hear auctioneers hawk boxes of ornaments, bunches of winterberry, cotton branches, icicle lights, grave blankets, red bows and tree stands. It was nearly everything you would need for Christmas except the food and the presents.Americans’ Christmas tree buying habits have been evolving for many years. These days homes are less likely than in years past to have a tree at all, and those that do have trees are more likely to opt for an artificial tree over the natural type, said Marsha Gray with the Howell, Michigan-based Real Christmas Tree Board, a national trade group of Christmas tree farmers.Cory Stephens was back for a second year at the auction after his customers raved about the holiday decor he purchased there last year for A.A. Co. Farm, Lawn & Garden, his store a three-hour drive away in Pasadena, Maryland. He spent nearly $5,000 on Thursday.“It’s incredible, it’s changed our whole world,” Stephens said. “If you know what you’re looking for, it’s very hard to beat the quality.”Ryan Marshall spent about $8,000 on various decorations for resale at Ward’s Berry Farm in Sharon, Massachusetts. Among his purchases were three skids of wreaths at $29 per wreath and he expected to double his money.“The quality’s good, and it’s a place that you can pick it out yourself,” he said.Gray said her group’s research shows the main reason people pick a real tree over an artificial tree “is the scent. They want the fresh scent of a real Christmas tree in their home.” Having children in the house also tends to correlate with picking a farm-grown tree, she said.An August survey by the Real Christmas Tree Board found that 84% of growers did not expect wholesale prices to increase this season.Buffalo Valley auction manager Neil Courtney said farm-grown tree prices seem to have stabilized, and he sees hope that the trend toward artificial trees can be reversed.“Long story short we’ll be back on top of the game shortly,” Courtney said. “The live tree puts the real Christmas in your house.”A survey by a trade group, the National Christmas Tree Association, found that more than 21 million farm-grown Christmas trees were sold in 2023, with median price of $75. About a quarter of them were purchased at a “choose-and-cut” farm, one in five from a chain store, and most of the rest from nurseries, retail lots, nonprofit sales and online. Mark Scolforo, Associated Press
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