Upside-down loans are becoming a big problem for new-car shoppers in the U.S. Research by shopping and editorial resource Edmunds found that more than 26 percent of all trade-ins on recent new-car ...

In certain states, significant numbers of property owners are seeing their mortgage balances outweighing home equity.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, 29.3% of trade-ins toward new car purchases had negative equity, according to new data from car website Edmunds. The average amount owed on trade-ins with negative ...

An increasing number of homeowners in San Diego and nationwide are facing “negative equity” because of falling home prices coupled with low down payments, according to the latest Cotality Home Equity ...

That does not mean the vehicles are submerged. In a sense, the drivers are. More than one in four trade-ins had negative equity in the third quarter of 2025, Edmunds reports. In auto industry parlance ...

Negative equity is when you owe more on a car than the car is worth, leaving you "upside down" or "underwater" on your loan. This continues to be a growing problem, as is the amount of negative equity ...

Negative equity, or being upside-down on your auto loan, means owing more on your vehicle than its current value. Some dealers might accept trade-ins with negative equity if you pay off what you owe ...

You might be able to trade in a car with negative equity, but it doesn’t always make sense Written By Written by Staff Loans Writer, Buy Side Emily Sherman is a staff loans writer for Buy Side, ...