The national mortgage delinquency rate fell to 3.91% in September, a decrease of 2.25% compared with August and a decrease of 41.3% compared with September 2020, according to Black Knight’s First Look report.
September marked the first time that the national delinquency rate fell below 4% in 18 months.
What would have been stronger improvement was partially offset by delinquencies rising by 7,800 in FEMA-declared disaster areas in hurricane-impacted Louisiana and by 11,000 in the state as a whole.
As of the end of September toughly 2.068 million homeowners were 30 days or more past due, but not in foreclosure, a decrease of about 54,000 compared with the previous month and a decrease of 1.474 million from September 2020.
There were about 3,900 foreclosure starts in September, down 45% compared with the previous month and down 13% from a year earlier. That’s the third lowest monthly total on record and within 6% of the record low set back in April of this year.
The decrease in foreclosure starts, however, follows a noticeable rise in August in the wake of the federal foreclosure moratoria expiration.
The foreclosure inventory rate hit yet another all-time low in September at 0.26%. That’s down 4.6% compared with August and down 25% compared with a year earlier.
Black Knight notes that with nearly 400,000 mortgage holders having exited forbearance plans in just the first two weeks of October alone, it will be essential to track foreclosure metrics closely in the coming months.
As of the end of September, about 1.2 million homeowners were 90 or more days past due on their mortgages but not yet in foreclosure, including those still in active forbearance plans.
Still, the number of borrowers who were seriously delinquent was down about 106,000 compared with August and down about 1.09 million compared with September 2020.
Photo: Behnam Norouzi
