Tag Archives: Mortgage Debt

When faced with a choice as to what type of debt they will take on, mortgage debt often loses out.

In 2014, mortgage debt was the third-highest form of debt among consumers, with 28 percent holding some form of housing-related debt, the report showed. The highest percentage of consumers have mortgage debt in their late 30s through their early 60s. For borrowers with mortgages, debt balances averaged $160,000 in 2014, up from $150,000 in 2010.

Debt-holding patterns reported by borrowers and those reported by lenders seem to agree more than one would expect, according to a study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Monday.

According to the New York Fed, foreclosures hit their lowest point in the 16-year history of the bank's Consumer Credit Panel, which uses anonymized Equifax credit data to generate a nationally representative sample.

Low-income households were found to be implicated the most by debt. Their debt equaled to just one-fifth of their income in 2007, but that proportion increased to half by 2013.

The severe delinquency rate on home equity installment loans fell from 2.59 percent in Q1 2014 to 1.98 percent in Q1 2015, while balances declined by 16.4 percent year-over-year in Q1 down to $136.1 billion and accounts declined by 10.6 percent down to 4.5 million for the same period.

The number of individuals who had a foreclosure notation added to their credit reports in Q1 was 112,000, the lowest total since 1999, while the number of consumers who had bankruptcies added to their credit reports dropped by 4 percent from Q4 to Q1 down to the lowest point since 2006.

Balances went up across most categories, led by a $39 billion increase in mortgage debt to a total of $8.2 trillion. Student loan debt—a commonly cited obstacle for recent college graduates interested in owning a home—followed closely, increasing $31 billion to a total of $1.2 trillion.

While the homeownership rate among Americans age 65 and older has remained at a constant 80 percent for the past decade, the percent of older Americans with outstanding mortgage debt has increased since the start of the housing crisis, according to a report released Wednesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Based on a poll of borrowers that have been subject to foreclosure, authorities at LoanSafe.org and AfterForeclosure.com say they're confident that 2014 will be the year of the ""boomerang"" borrower. They say changes in lending guidelines and population shifts make these buyers essential to the recovery of the housing market, particularly since developments that naturally advance housing have been largely disrupted in today's environment.