LendingTree Announces North Dakota has Healthiest Housing Market in America

CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --  LendingTree, LLC, the nation's leading online source for competitive loan offers, announced today that North Dakota has the healthiest housing market in America.  This is according to its Healthiest Housing Index, a state-by-state ranking of housing health.  Evaluated and weighed by seven critical housing market elements, the index ranks 48 states and Washington D.C. to evaluate the combined effect of the seven elements using a LendingTree proprietary model.

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The top and bottom states according to LendingTree are:

A link to download the LendingTree's Healthiest Housing Markets in infographic form can also be found here.  (South Dakota and Vermont were not ranked because of insufficient data.)

"Many people are familiar with the housing market collapse in states like Nevada, but through our analysis of negative equity, we see other areas such as Louisiana (No. 45) and even Kentucky (No. 36) as at risk, even though they have not yet made headlines," explains Cameron Findlay, LendingTree chief economist.  "These are states we are keeping a close eye on."

On a positive note, the Great Plains region is the overall healthiest housing region, as home to eight of the top healthiest states. 

Other key findings from the index include:

• California, a state ranked #46 out of a possible 49, holds almost 22% of the mortgage market in terms of the amount financed, and just over 14% of the mortgage market in terms of the number of homes financed.
• Nevada, ranked #49 out of a possible 49, has the highest unemployment rate of 12.6% (the nationwide US unemployment rate is currently 8.5%)
• Nevada also has the highest average loan to value ratio by far – over 110%, meaning that the average house has about 10% negative equity.
• Alaska leads the nation with the lowest percentage of foreclosures – less than 1% of Alaskan households are in foreclosure. Overall, the US average is about 4.6%.

Findlay also determines, "Judicial states like New Jersey and New York are inhibited by high foreclosure inventories and low real estate owned (REO) sales when compared to Non-Judicial states. Once this foreclosure backlog hits the judicial states, we can expect to see a negative impact on home prices in those regions which have been slow to react. New Jersey, for example, will continue to experience further declines."

The seven elements evaluated in the LendingTree Healthiest Housing Index are:

• Debt-to-Income Ratio
• Unemployment Rate
• Home Ownership/Vacancy
• Percentage Past-Due
• Foreclosure Percentage
• Loan to Value Ratio
• Equity

The LendingTree Healthiest Housing Index will be published the third week of each month and evaluates each state's housing health based on the LendingTree Healthiest Housing Market economic model. For a detailed look at each state's housing elements that were used for the state rankings visit http://marketing.lendingtree.com/pr/State_RecoveryIndex_20120229.pdf.  For more information on the index and its calculations, please visit: http://marketing.lendingtree.com/pr/Index_Explanation.pdf

About LendingTree, LLC
LendingTree, LLC is the nation's leading online lender exchange and personal finance resource, helping consumers take charge of all their financial decisions, from mortgages to credit cards and more. LendingTree provides a marketplace that connects consumers with multiple lenders that compete for their business, as well as an array of online tools to aid consumers in their financial decisions. Since inception, LendingTree has facilitated more than 30 million loan requests and $214 billion in closed loan transactions. LendingTree provides access to lenders offering mortgages and refinance loans, home equity loans/lines of credit, and more.LendingTree, LLC is a subsidiary of Tree.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: TREE). For more information go to www.lendingtree.com, dial 800-555-TREE, join our Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter @LendingTree.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Megan Greuling
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SOURCE LendingTree, LLC