Housing market recovery exceeds expectations

The U.S. housing market is recovering faster than most people anticipated, saving 8 million underwater homeowners from dire economic circumstances, Bloomberg reported.

More than 12 million borrowers owed more money on mortgages than their homes were worth at the height of the economic recession. But housing value is on the rise and the number of underwater homeowners decreased by about 4 million to a total of 7 million in 2012.