Young and foolhardy? Homeowners under 40 more likely to be underwater - Boston Real Estate Now - Boston.com

Young and foolhardy? Homeowners under 40 more likely to be underwater - Boston Real Estate Now - Boston.com.

Here's a pretty stunning number: Just under half of all homeowners under 40 are struggling with underwater mortgages. 

The stat comes from Zillow's second quarter report on negative equity. And the numbers are even higher when you look at homeowners in their early thirties, a full half of whom are underwater. 

That number, however, steadily drops with age, with just under a third of homeowners in their late forties underwater and just under a quarter of those in their late fifties buried under more mortgage debt than their homes are worth, according to Zillow. 

The most obvious explanation is that homeowners now in their thirties were more likely to have bought starter homes at the peak of the bubble and now find themselves stuck.

So our young families are struggling with either high rents or unaffordable and unrealistic mortgages.   Are we a great country, or what?

Only a few of us seem to realize there is an alternative to a system designed to produce these results.