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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Q2 2009: Mortgage Equity Extraction Strongly Negative

by Calculated Risk on 9/22/2009 01:14:00 PM

Note: This is not data from the Fed. The last MEW data from Fed economist Dr. Kennedy was for Q4 2008. My thanks to Jim Kennedy and the other contributors for the pervious MEW updates. For those interested in the last Kennedy data, here is a post, and the spreadsheet from the Fed is available here.

The following data is calculated from the Fed's Flow of Funds data and the BEA supplement data on single family structure investment.

Mortgage Equity Withdrawal Click on graph for larger image in new window.

For Q2 2009, the Net Equity Extraction was minus $48 billion, or negative 1.8% of Disposable Personal Income (DPI).

This graph shows the net equity extraction, or mortgage equity withdrawal (MEW), results, using the Flow of Funds (and BEA data) compared to the Kennedy-Greenspan method.

The Fed's Flow of Funds report shows the amount of mortgage debt outstanding is declining, and this is partially because of debt cancellation per foreclosure sales (and a little from modifications), and partially due to homeowners paying down their mortgages (as opposed to borrowing more). Note: most homeowners pay down their principal a little each month (unless they have an IO or Neg AM loan), so with no new borrowing, equity extraction would always be negative.

Clearly the Home ATM has now been closed for a few quarters.