In the third quarter, homeowners’ equity rose nearly 18 percent over the level of a year ago to reach the highest level recorded since the second quarter of 2008.

Homeowners’ equity reached $7714.3 billion, a 5.2 percent increase over the second quarter and an 18 percent increase over the level of $6526.9 in the third quarter of 20011.  In 2007, homeowners’ equity reached $1.02 trillion, but fell to $7050.9 billion in 2008, according to the quarterly Federal Reserve Flow of Funds report.

CoreLogic previously reported that as of the second quarter, improving equity helped the number of underwater homeowners fall to 10,779,000, a 5.2 percent decline from the first quarter and 8.1 percent less than a year ago. About 22.3 percent of all homes with mortgage owed more on their homes than those properties are worth. That was an improvement from the first quarter, when there were about 11.4 million underwater homes, amounting to about 23.7% of all mortgaged homes.  The number of underwater homeowners in the third quarter has not yet been reported.

The value of real estate owned by households increased about $370 billion over the second quarter as more and more markets reported improving home values. The Federal Housing Finance Administration reported earlier that home prices through the third quarter are rising at an annualized rate of 4.34 percent and rose 1.08 percent over the second quarter.

Total household net worth-the difference between the value of households’ assets and liabilities-was about $64.8 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2012, $1.7 trillion more than at the end of the second quarter.  Household debt decreased at an annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter.  Home mortgage debt contracted 3 percent, continuing the downtrend that commenced in early 2008.  Consumer credit rose at an annual rate of 4 ¼ percent, the eighth consecutive quarterly increase.

My teacher Zig Ziglar died this morning. He was 86.

Thanks for teaching me how to sell and why it mattered.

Thanks for reminding me how much it mattered to care.

Thanks for telling us a fifteen-minute story about Johnny the Shoe Shine Genius, so compelling that I flew to the airport just to meet him.

Thanks for 72 hours of audiotapes, listened to so many times I wore out the cassettes twice.

Thanks for that one day we spent backstage together in Milwaukee.

Thanks for making goal setting so clear.

Thanks for elevating the art of public speaking, and making it personal, not something to be copied.

Thanks for believing in us, the people you almost never met in person, for supporting us with your voice and your stories and your enthusiasm.

Thanks for teaching so many people, people who will continue to remember you and to teach as well.

You’ll be missed.