Have you read any good books lately? http://www.aslan.ie/biography/ buy intagra The headlines in the newspapers tout the fact that rising home prices are helping to alleviate the problem of underwater mortgages. However, according to CoreLogic, as of June 2013 there are still 9.7 million homes (19.8 percent of all homes with mortgages) where the outstanding mortgage is greater than the value of the house. Worse still, these homes are concentrated in specific neighborhoods where property values are recovering slowly, if at all. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies in its State of the Nation's Housing 2013, "during the worst years of the housing downturn, 4,689 census tracts (the statistical equivalent of a neighborhood) had very high vacancy rates, with more than one in five homes unoccupied." These are the neighborhoods, like Richmond, where homeowners are deciding whether or not to abandon their homes and further add to the blight and distress.