U.S. homeowners with mortgages held a record $18 trillion in home equity in the second quarter, even as delinquencies and active foreclosures climbed to their highest levels in years, according to Intercontinental Exchange’s August 2026 Mortgage Monitor report.
“Mortgage holder equity hitting $18 trillion is a remarkable milestone — one that reflects just how much wealth American homeowners have built,” said Andy Walden, head of mortgage and housing market research at ICE.
Record wealth, uneven access
Within that $18 trillion total, 47.5 million mortgage holders hold $11.7 trillion in “tappable” equity — the amount that can typically be borrowed against while keeping a 20% equity cushion — averaging roughly $212,000 per borrower, ICE found. Annual home price growth rose to 1.5% in July, a 14-month high and the fifth consecutive month of acceleration, marking the steepest single-month increase since mid-2023.
But the equity gains are not evenly distributed. ICE counted about 813,000 underwater borrowers, up 44% from a year earlier, with negative equity concentrated among FHA and VA borrowers and among people who purchased homes between 2022 and 2025, particularly in Texas and Florida markets that have cooled since those peak-price years.
Delinquencies and foreclosures rise
The national mortgage delinquency rate rose to 3.55% in June, and the share of mortgages in active foreclosure climbed to 0.53%, its highest level in six years. Both remain below the pre-pandemic benchmark of 0.57%, ICE noted, but the upward trend marks a shift after years of historically low distress levels following the pandemic-era forbearance programs.
Borrowers are also paying meaningfully different rates depending on loan type, the report found. Conforming purchase borrowers face a 38-basis-point spread over benchmark rates, adding about $76 a month, or roughly $5,790 over five years, on a $300,000 mortgage. FHA and VA borrowers face wider spreads of 47 to 48 basis points.
Foreclosed properties are also selling at steep discounts: real estate-owned homes sold in June at a 27.5% discount to comparable sales, among the largest such discounts ICE has recorded in more than two decades of tracking. A deeper discount typically signals lenders and investors are moving distressed inventory quickly rather than holding out for stronger offers, often a leading indicator of how aggressively the market is working through early-stage defaults.
The regional concentration of negative equity in Texas and Florida also lines up with broader cooling trends in both states this year, where new-construction supply has outpaced buyer demand in several metro areas, pressuring resale values for owners who purchased near the top of the 2022-2023 price cycle.
What it means
ICE’s data paints a housing market with two diverging trend lines. Home values and the equity cushion they provide keep climbing to fresh records, verified facts that reflect years of tight supply pushing prices higher even as sales volumes stayed subdued. At the same time, delinquencies, foreclosures and negative equity are all rising off historically low bases, a shift ICE’s own commentary frames as worth watching rather than alarming, given levels remain below pre-pandemic norms.
“The data in this month’s Mortgage Monitor tells a story that our technology is purpose-built to help lenders act on,” said Bob Hart, president of mortgage technology at ICE, a framing that underscores the report’s role as both market research and marketing for ICE’s loan servicing and default-management software business.
The equity build-up gives most homeowners a buffer against a downturn even as pockets of distress emerge in specific loan types and price cohorts, a dynamic RealtyWire has also tracked through Cotality’s separate Q1 2026 equity estimate and ICE Mortgage Technology’s own data on FHA default trends. Whether rising foreclosure and delinquency rates continue accelerating, or level off as ICE’s data suggests may already be happening, will shape the mortgage servicing industry’s outlook heading into next year.
