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Last week, online real estate valuation researcher Zillow.com released its latest quarterly numbers on negative equity in major markets. The findings were sobering, but the study also offered some hints of improvement. The overall negative equity rate among U.S. homeowners remained flat in the fourth quarter at 21.4%. But like the Fed’s numbers, that represented a decrease from the first two quarters of last year, when 22% and 23% of owners owed more on their mortgages than the estimated market value of their real estate. Zillow’s study found that in dozens of housing markets — including Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Miami, San Jose, Seattle and Tampa-St. Petersburg — the percentage of homeowners with negative equity appears to be on the decline and home equity values are on the rise.

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