[1]The number of seriously delinquent mortgage loans, which are those that are more than 90 days past due or in foreclosure, dropped nationwide by 21 percent year-over-year in September, according to CoreLogic [2]'s September 2014 National Foreclosure Report [3] released on Wednesday.
While the number of seriously delinquent mortgages continues to decline, CoreLogic's chief deputy economist, Sam Khater, said that the rate of decline has slowed; every month from October 2013 to July 2014, serious delinquencies declined nationwide by at least 25 percent with a high of 25.9 percent in June 2014, according to CoreLogic.
The total number of seriously delinquent mortgages in the U.S. in September was 1.6 million, a decline of 1.4 percent from August [4], according to CoreLogic. September marked the 10th consecutive month in which serious delinquencies totaled less than two million; there has not been a month with more than two million serious delinquencies reported since November 2013.
In September, serious delinquent mortgages accounted for 4.2 percent of all mortgages in the U.S., a slight decline from 4.3 percent in August, according to CoreLogic. New Jersey was the state with the highest serious delinquency rate, at 9.2 percent. Florida was second at 8.6 percent, and New York was third at 7.4 percent. All three are judicial foreclosure states, meaning the foreclosure process must pass through the courts to be completed. Among non-judicial states, the highest serious delinquency rate was posted by Nevada at 5.7 percent. Rhode Island and Mississippi tied for the second highest serious delinquency rate among non-judicial states with 5.6 percent each, CoreLogic reported.
The metro area with the highest serious delinquency rate, according to CoreLogic, was Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida, at 9.7 percent. Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida, was second with 8.4 percent, and New York-Jersey City-White Plains, New York-New Jersey was third at 7.4 percent, according to CoreLogic.