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HOMEOWNERS TWICE AS RICH AS FIVE YEARS AGO Source: CNBC
 After hitting bottom in 2012, home prices took off dramatically before leveling off a bit in mid-2014. In the last two months, though, they turned higher again. The amount of equity homeowners now have — the value outside their mortgage debt — has doubled in the last five years, according to CoreLogic. September home prices showed a 6.3 percent annual gain, slightly more than in August and a clear sign that prices are heating up again after cooling through much of spring and summer. CoreLogic’s chief economist said that home equity wealth has doubled during the last five years to $13 trillion, large because of the recovery in home prices.
While homeowners today show more wealth on paper, they are not extracting it at nearly the rate they did during the last housing boom. Near-record-low mortgage rates have certainly prompted thousands of borrowers to refinance and lower their monthly payments, but a very small share have extracted cash in these refinances and home equity lines of credit (HELOC). 

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