Which US counties are most at risk from a housing downturn?

New Jersey came out with the top three counties most vulnerable to housing decline: Passaic, Essex, and Atlantic counties placed first, second, and third, respectively. The most vulnerable New York City counties included Kings and Richmond – covering Brooklyn and Staten Island – and seven in the suburbs: Bergen, Essex, Ocean, Passaic, Sussex, Union, and Rockland. Manhattan placed 52nd.

Cook County (covering Chicago) came out seventh and was the only one in the top 25 with a population of at least one million.

Counties with a population of at least half a million found among the 50 safest included: Washington’s King County (covering Seattle), Texas’s Travis County (Austin), Utah’s Salt Lake County, North Carolina’s Wake County (Raleigh) , and Cobb County in Georgia.

Counties populating the bottom of the list and considered least vulnerable came mostly from the South and Midwest and featured more affordable homes and lower levels of underwater mortgages, foreclosures, and unemployment.