[1]Fewer and fewer residential mortgage loans are seriously delinquent (90 or more days past due) as the crisis passes its seven-year anniversary, according to several different measures recently released. In some cases, the number of seriously delinquent loans is at or below pre-crisis levels.
In its most recent National Foreclosure Report [2], CoreLogic reported a serious delinquency rate of about 3.3 percent as of the end of November 2015, which computes to about 1.25 million homes—the lowest level since December 2007, before the crisis.
“Tight post-crash underwriting standards coupled with much improved economic and housing market fundamentals have combined to push new mortgage delinquencies to 15-year-lows,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Although judicial states will likely continue to lag, given current trends, it is reasonable to expect a continued and significant drop in the rate of serious delinquencies and foreclosure starts in 2016.”
According to CoreLogic, non-judicial foreclosure states continued to have much lower serious delinquency rates than judicial foreclosure states in November. Only six non-judicial states had serious delinquency rates higher than the national average of 3.3 percent for the month, while only five judicial states had serious delinquency rates below the national average for November. The state with the highest serious delinquency rate was still New Jersey at 7.8 percent, followed by New York at 6.4 percent and Florida with 5.4 percent.
In its November 2015 Mortgage Monitor [3], Black Knight Financial Services reported a 26 percent drop year-over-year in 90-plus day delinquent inventory, down to about 827,000 properties. The number of 90-plus day delinquencies was still way down year-over-year despite a seasonal uptick in November.
The FHFA reported in its Foreclosure Prevention Report for October 2015 [4] released earlier this week that the serious delinquency rate on residential mortgage loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dropped from 1.52 percent to 1.50 percent. The GSEs are completing fewer loan modifications, however; through the first 11 months of 2015, Fannie Mae averaged slightly less than 8,000 loan mods per month compared to more than 10,000 monthly for all of 2014.
The share of 60-day delinquencies for the GSEs was at 1.9 percent in October, down from its peak of 5.9 percent in 2011.