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The Dayton metro area fared somewhat better, but not much, despite benefiting from a long-term trend in home price appreciation that pushed the average sales price in the Dayton area to an all-time record of $161,380 in June, and $138,101 in December — a new record for the month, according to the Dayton Area Board of Realtors.
RELATED: Dayton area home sales reach record in 2016
Still, 20 percent of Dayton-area homeowners were seriously underwater at the end of last year, ranking the local metro No. 4 among the 88 largest metro areas in the country, according to ATTOM.
Including the Dayton area, four of the top five metros with the highest share of seriously underwater homeowners in the fourth quarter of 2016 were in Ohio: Cleveland (21.5 percent); Akron (20.1 percent); and Toldeo (19.9 percent).
The highest percentage of homeowners with serious negative equity were found in Las Vegas, Nev., where 22.7 percent of homeowners were seriously underwater at the end of last year, ATTOM reported.
Nationally, home equity has been steadily rising since negative equity peaked in 2009, driving down the total share of seriously underwater U.S. homeowners to 9.6 percent at the end of last year, which was down from 11.5 percent in the fourth quarter a year earlier, according to ATTOM.
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