On Monday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [1](CFPB) launched a Mortgage Performance Trends Tool [2] that allows user to explore interactive charts and graphs to dig into the mortgage delinquency rates for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The tool’s info is powered by information from the National Mortgage Database—launched by the CFPB and Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2012.“Measuring the number of consumers who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments is a telling barometer of the health of mortgage markets locally and nationally,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “This rich information source identifies mortgage delinquency rates down to the county and metro-area level, making it a useful public tool.”
The tool breaks down delinquencies into two general categories. The first are borrowers 30-89 days behind (generally missing one or two payments). According to the CFPB tracking borrowers in this category “can detect trends in the increase or decrease in the number of delinquencies, and act as an early warning sign for mortgage market developments that impact the overall economy.” The second category is made up of borrowers in serious delinquency (which is categorized as 90 days or more overdue).
According to the CFPB, high rates of seriously delinquency can signal severe economic distress in the marketplace, but according to the Mortgage Performance Trends Tool the rates of serious delinquency are at the lowest level since the financial crisis. In its peak in 2010, this rate was at 4.9 percent according to the CFPB, but as of March 2017 its fallen to 1.1. percent. New Jersey and Mississippi lead the nation with serious delinquency rates of 2.1 percent.
States that show vast improvement since the housing crisis include California and Arizona, which in 2010 had seriously delinquency rates of 7.5 percent. As of March, Arizona’s serious delinquency comes in at 0.8 percent, while California has one of the lowest serious delinquency rates in the nation at 0.6. The only two states lower than California are Alaska and Colorado—both at 0.5 percent.