At one point in 2012, more than 70 percent of Las Vegas homeowners with mortgages were underwater. According to AOL Real Estate, “many people in Las Vegas stopped paying their mortgages for months and years at a time with little consequence.”
The city’s negative equity rate today has fallen to 25 percent, still higher than any other major market, where the rate is closer to 3 percent in normal times.
According to Zillow, the pain of Vegas’ housing crash still isn’t over. There are many homeowners who filed for bankruptcy, leaving their homes and coming back only to findthat the homes have remained in their names the whole time.
In extreme cases, squatters move into these vacated homes, and when the squatters are injured, they will sue the homeowner.