Approximately 200,000 American homeowners got out from being underwater in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to a new report from CoreLogic, a real estate data and analytics provider. For the whole year, 1.7 million properties returned to positive equity.

According to the report, 10.4 million homes—21.5 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage—were still in negative equity at the end of the fourth quarter of 2012. That’s down from 10.6 million properties, or 22 percent, at the end of the third quarter of 2012.

Altogether, the volume of property in negative equity across the country decreased $42 billion to $628 billion at the end of the fourth quarter from $670 billion at the end of the third quarter in 2012. This decrease was driven in large part by an improvement in home prices.

Of the 38.1 million residential properties with positive equity, 11.3 million have less than 20 percent equity, including 2.3 million residential properties with less than 5 percent equity. Properties that are near negative equity are at risk should home prices fall.

In Massachusetts, 15.9 percent of homeowners remained in negative equity, with an additional 3.2 percent of homeowners in near-negative equity.

"In the fourth quarter we again saw an improvement in the equity position of households," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogick, in a statement. "Housing market improvements, particularly in the hardest hit states, are the catalyst for households to regain equity and become participants in 2013’s housing market."

Nevada had the highest percentage of mortgaged properties in negative equity at 52.4 percent, followed by Florida (40.2 percent), Arizona (34.9 percent), Georgia (33.8 percent) and Michigan (31.9 percent). These top five states combined account for 32.7 percent of negative equity in the U.S.