The national mortgage delinquency rate increased to 3.29% in September, up 12 basis points (BPS) from August and up 13 BPS from September 2022, according to ICE Mortgage Technology’s First Look report.
It was the largest annual increase in the mortgage delinquency rate in the past 2.5 years.
However, despite the increase, the delinquency rate is still 71 BPS below the level of pre-pandemic September 2019.
About 1.749 million loans were 30 days or more past due in September, an increase of 64.000 compared with August and up 96.000 compared with September 2022.
About 455,000 loans were seriously delinquent, or 90 days or more past due but not in foreclosure. That’s a slight increase of about 7,000 loans compared with the previous month, but down about 132,000 loans compared with a year earlier.
The foreclosure pre-sale inventory rate stood at 0.40% as of the end of September, down 0.41% compared with the previous month and down 7.18% compared with a year earlier.
As of the end of the month, there were about 214,000 properties in the foreclosure pre-sale inventory – down only 1,000 compared with August and down about 13,000 compared with September 2022.
That’s the lowest number of loans in active foreclosure since March 2022 and some 25% below 2019 pre-pandemic levels, the company says.
There were about 25,000 foreclosure starts in September, a decrease of 20.4% compared with August, but up 4.81% compared with September 2022.
Prepayment activity (measured as single-month mortality) dropped to 0.45% under continued pressure from seasonal homebuying patterns confounded by interest rates north of 7%, and is down 26% year over year.
Photo: Alexander Grey
