According to Zillow, a firm that provides information on the U.S. real estate market, almost 30 percent of all single-family homes with mortgages in the United States are in  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  negative equity, that is, the value of the real estate is below the outstanding amount of debt.
This figure illustrates how seriously the balance sheets of U.S. households have been damaged. The unemployment rate has also remained high at around 9 percent, and the recovery in employment has been slow.