A new report out Monday finds 18 percent of current mortgages in the United States are underwater or owing more on the mortgage than the home’s current market value.

The percent of mortgages in Ohio that are current but underwater in July was the same as the national average of 18 percent, according to Lender Processing Services Inc.’s July Mortgage Monitor. Lender Processing is a Jacksonville, Fla.-based data and technology company for the mortgage industry.

Loan delinquencies are falling, down to approximately 7 percent on the national level and closer to 8 percent in Ohio, according to the company’s analysis.

Even though fewer people are falling behind on their home loan payments, high negative equity is a concern because it’s more likely to create problem loans in the future, Lender Processing said.

“The July mortgage performance data shows a continuing correlation between negative equity and new problem loans,” said Herb Blecher, senior vice president, LPS Applied Analytics, in a statement with the release. “As negative equity increases, we see corresponding increases in the number of new problem loans.

“In Nevada and Florida, two of the states with the highest percentage of underwater borrowers, more than 3 percent of borrowers who were up to date on their payments are 60 or more days delinquent six months later,” Blecher said. “This suggests that further home price declines – should they occur – could jeopardize recent improvements.”

Ohio has seen about a 15 to 20 percent on average decrease in real estate values since the height of the market in 2005, said Tom Francis Jr., vice president and branch manager of Real Property Analysts Inc. in Columbus, and 2011 president of Ohio Coalition of Appraisal Professionals.

“A homeowner that has negative equity, you’re much more incentivized to walk away than to keep making the mortgage,” Francis said. “If you were told you had a $50,000 negative equity position, would you want to keep making that mortgage payment?”

Factors including the state of the economy, lack of jobs, and in 2005, liberal lending practices, are at the root of the issue, he said.

“When you strip it away, most people have not paid their mortgage not because they want to game the system, but because they lost their job,” he said.