Mortgage Delinquency Rate at 10-Year Low

[cnxvideo id=”625452″ placement=”ros”]The share of home mortgage loan payments that are 30 days or more past due fell from 6.4% in January 2016 to 5.3% in January 2017. That’s the lowest 30-plus delinquency rate in a decade.

The share of mortgages that transitioned from current to 30 days past due was 1.2% in January 2016 compared with 0.9% in January 2017. That is lower than the rate in January 2007, before the housing crisis struck, and much lower than the 2% rate in November 2008.

The data were reported Tuesday by CoreLogic in its first Loan Performance Insights report. Early-stage delinquencies, defined as 30 to 59 days past due, were trending lower in January 2017 at 2.1%t compared with a year ago at 2.4% in January 2016. The share of mortgages that were 60 to 89 days past due in January 2017 was 0.7%, down from 0.8% in January 2016. According to CoreLogic, measuring early-stage delinquency rates is important for analyzing the health of the mortgage market.

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

Steady job and income growth, combined with full-doc underwriting, has led to low early-stage delinquencies. January’s 0.9 percent transition rate for current to 30 days late is lower than a year ago and much lower than the 1.5 percent average from 2000 and 2001, during which the foreclosure rate was, conversely, lower than it is today.

Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic, added:

The 30-plus delinquency rate, the most comprehensive measure of mortgage performance, is at a 10-year low and rapidly declining. While late-stage delinquencies remain in the pipeline in selected markets, early-stage delinquency performance is stellar and the lowest it’s been in two decades. The continued improvement in mortgage performance bodes well for the health of the market in 2017.

The three states with the lowest 30-plus delinquency rate in January 2017 were North Dakota (2.1%), Colorado (2.4%) and Montana (2.8%). The 30-plus delinquency rate was highest in Mississippi (9.4%), Louisiana (8.8%) and New Jersey (8.6%).

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