The Week Ahead: An Eye on Mortgage Performance

This week, Freddie Mac will be releasing its latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey, a measure of changes in rates both month-over-month and year-over-year. Recently, a report by Markets Insider revealed the growing virus has caused mortgage rates to continue their downward slide. The report found the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit 3.34%.

The yield on the 30-year US Treasury bond was still at 1.8%, a record low, while the 10-year yield fell to 1.37%, its lowest since 2012.

Realtor.com’s Chief Economist Danielle Hale said that there is limited knowledge on the Coronavirus, as well as its “human and economic impacts.”

“There have been periods when it seemed that the virus might be relatively contained as with the SARS outbreak many years ago,” Hale said. “New information suggests that COVID-19 may be more easily spread and thus will have more wide-spread impacts. But we are still learning, and as we learn more, markets will adjust to price-in this new information.”

Additionally, according to Freddie Mac, the single-family serious delinquency rate fell 3 basis points to 60 in January. Freddie Mac’s maximum exposure to Fannie Mae-issued collateral included in Freddie Mac-issued resecuritizations was $30.4 billion.

Delinquency on mortgage loans through Freddie Mac consistently fell through 2019. The delinquency rate for mortgage loans was at 0.86% in January 2019 and ended the year at 0.79%.

Black Knight’s January 2020 look at mortgage data found the national delinquency rate fell to 3.22%. Delinquencies fell more than 5% month-to-month in January and are down 14.17% over the year.

While loan delinquencies are on a downward trend, foreclosure starts rose in January by 8.35%. However, they are 14.74% down on an annual basis.

The foreclosure rate charted a barely perceptible increase of just 0.41% over the month of January as 1,000 properties slipped into foreclosure. The national foreclosure rate now stands at 0.46% of all mortgage loans outstanding. Despite the slight increase in January, the rate is down 9.24% from a year ago.

Here's what else is happening in The Week Ahead:

Construction Spending (March 2)
Unemployment Rate (March 6)