Rising home prices mean fewer underwater homeowners and that could prompt more people to consider selling or help others avoid foreclosure or short sale, according to RealtyTrac’s U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report. Among the key findings: While 10.7 million homes were deeply underwater in September, another 8.3 million were only slightly underwater or slightly above and those could move into positive equity territory within 15 months.

“Steadily rising home prices are lifting all boats in this housing market and should spill over into more inventory of homes for sale in the coming months. Homeowners who already have ample equity are quickly building on that equity, while the 8.3 million homeowners on the fence with little or no equity are on track to regain enough equity to sell before 2015 if home prices continue to increase at the rate of 1.33 percent per month that they have since bottoming out in March 2012,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.

Read the news release from RealtyTrac for more details. Also find media coverage from HousingWire on the data.