The mortgage delinquency rate (30 days or more past due) in February fell to 5.0% of all loans – down from 5.5% in February 2016, according to CoreLogic’s Loan Performance Insights Report.
As of the end of February, the foreclosure inventory rate was 0.8% compared with 1.1% in February 2016.
The serious delinquency rate (90 days or more past due, including loans in foreclosure) was 2.2% in February – down from 2.8% a year earlier.
Early-stage delinquencies, defined as 30-59 days past due, were trending slightly higher in February at 2.14% compared with 2.08% in February 2016 – an increase of 0.06%.
The share of mortgages that were 60-89 days past due in February was 0.7%, unchanged from a year earlier.
The share of mortgages that transitioned from current to 30 days past due was 1.0%, up from 0.8% in February 2016. By comparison, in January 2007, just before the start of the financial crisis, the current-to-30-day transition rate was 1.2%, and it peaked in November 2008 at 2.0%.
“Serious delinquency and foreclosure rates continue to drift lower and are at their lowest levels since the fourth quarter of 2007,” says Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic, in a statement. “Moreover, the past-due share dropped to five percent, the lowest since September 2007. However, current-to-30-day-past-due transition rates ticked up in February – and 30-day-to-60-day delinquency rates held mostly steady, recording only a 0.06 percent increase.”
“While national-level delinquency rates declined, the serious delinquency rate remained elevated in many mid-Atlantic and Northeast states, led by New York and New Jersey,” adds Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “February-to-February increases in both 30-day-or-more delinquency rates and in serious delinquency rates were also observed in Alaska, Louisiana and Wyoming, relating to the impact of the downturn in the global oil market.”
