Mortgage Delinquencies Remain Near 10-Year Low

The share of home mortgage loan payments that are 30 days or more past due fell from 5.3% in July 2016 to 4.6% in July 2017. The foreclosure inventory rate fell from 0.9% to 0.7% in the same period.

The share of mortgages that transitioned from current to 30 days past due was 0.9% in July 2017, down 0.2 percentage points compared with July 2016. This year’s rate is below the transition rate of 1.2% just before the housing crisis struck, and well below the peak rate of 2% in November 2008.

The data were reported Tuesday by CoreLogic in its Loan Performance Insights report. Early-stage delinquencies, defined as 30 to 59 days past due, were trending lower in July 2017 at 2.0%, compared with the year-ago rate of 2.3%. The share of mortgages that were 60 to 89 days past due in July 2017 was 0.7%, unchanged compared with last year’s rate. According to CoreLogic, measuring early-stage delinquency rates is important for analyzing the health of the mortgage market.

CoreLogic’s chief economist, Dr. Frank Nothaft, said:

While the U.S. foreclosure rate remains at a 10-year low as of July, the rate across the 100 largest metro areas varies from 0.1 percent in Denver to 2.2 percent in New York. Likewise, the national serious delinquency rate remains at 1.9 percent, unchanged from June, and when analyzed across the 100 largest metros, rates vary from 0.6 percent in Denver to 4.1 percent in New York.

Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic, added:

Even though delinquency rates are lower in most markets compared with a year ago, there are some worrying trends. For example, markets affected by the decline in oil production or anemic job creation have seen an increase in defaults. We see this in markets such as Anchorage, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette, Louisiana where the serious delinquency rate rose over the last year.

The states with the lowest 30-plus delinquency rate in July 2017 were North Dakota (2.1%), Colorado (2.2%) and Montana and Oregon (2.6%). The 30-plus delinquency rate was highest in Mississippi (8.4%), Louisiana (7.8%) and New Jersey (7.1%).

The metro areas with the highest 30-plus delinquency rates in July were New York City (6.8%), Miami (6.3%) and Houston (5.5%). The metro areas with the lowest rates were San Francisco (1.8%), Denver (2.1%) and Los Angeles (2.9%).