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Rebuilding and Repaying After Storms

hurricane vortex

delinquency Recent natural disasters have pushed mortgage delinquencies up slightly, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA [1]) National Delinquency Survey. The report states that the delinquency rate rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.47 percent of all loans outstanding at the end of Q3 2018.

“Despite the small uptick this quarter, the healthy economy is overall supporting low mortgage delinquencies and foreclosure inventories,” said Marina Walsh, VP of Industry Analysis at MBA. “Unemployment is at its lowest level since 1969, wages have grown 3.1 percent year-over-year—the biggest jump in almost a decade—and job growth is averaging over 212,000 jobs per month thus far.”

Though delinquencies were up 11 basis point over the previous quarter, MBA notes that the rate is down 41 basis points year-over-year. The national uptick may be due in part to the significant increases in delinquency in states that were impacted by Hurricane Florence and Tropical Storm Gordon, such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama.

These states all saw increases in non-seasonally-adjusted mortgage delinquency rates over the previous quarter by 50 basis points or more, with North Carolina increasing by 80 basis points.

Walsh notes that Hurricane Michael made landfall after the survey reporting period, and its impact will not be reflected until at least the fourth quarter survey. Additionally, she notes it may take several more quarters for the impact of the more recent storms to fully dissipate.

“The impact of the August and September 2017 hurricanes on several states, particularly Texas and Florida, continues to retreat,” said Walsh. “Primarily because of the declining effects of last fall’s hurricane-related spike, the overall mortgage delinquency rate in the third quarter was down 41 basis points on a year-over-year basis.”

Across all loan types, delinquencies have dropped year-over-year, with conventional loans dropped by 41 basis points and FHA and VA delinquency rates dropped 44 basis points and 8 basis points, respectively.

More information can be found here. [2]