The latest Loan Performance Insights Report from CoreLogic shows the overall delinquency rate at their lowest mark in at least 20 years.
Nationally, CoreLogic reported that 3.7 percent of mortgages were in some stage of delinquency – 30 days or more past due, including those in foreclosure – in October, the most recent month in which data is available. That represents a 0.4 percent decline from a year earlier, and is the lowest mark for an October since at least 1999, when the overall rate was 4.4 percent.
The foreclosure inventory rate of 0.4 percent, meanwhile, declined 0.1 percent from a year earlier, tying the lowest level for any month since at least January 1999.
“Home price growth builds homeowner equity and reduces the likelihood of a loan entering foreclosure,” Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic, said in a press release announcing the report.
Measuring early-stage delinquency rates is important for analyzing the health of the mortgage market, CoreLogic stated, noting that the rate for early-stage delinquencies – defined as 30 to 59 days past due – was 1.8 percent in October, down from 1.9 percent in October 2018.
The share of mortgages 60 to 89 days past due was 0.6 percent, down from 0.7 percent a year earelier.
The serious delinquency rate – defined as 90 days or more past due, including loans in foreclosure – was 1.3 percent, down from 1.5 percent in October 2018. The serious delinquency rate has remained consistent since April 2019.
“National foreclosure and serious delinquency rates have remained fixed at record lows for at least the last six months,” CoreLogic President and CEO Frank Martell said. “However, as markets can be much more volatile at the metro level, both late-stage delinquencies and foreclosures have continued to increase at this level in the Midwest and Southern regions of the country.”
No states posted a year-over-year increase in the overall delinquency rate in October 2019. The states that logged the largest annual decreases included North Carolina (down 0.9 percentage points) and Mississippi (down 0.8 percentage points). Eight other states followed with annual decreases of 0.6 percentage points.
In October 2019, eight metropolitan areas in the Midwest and South recorded small annual increases in overall delinquency rates. The largest annual increases in October 2019 were: Pine Bluff, Ark., (1.0 percentage points); Dubuque, Iowa, (0.2 percentage points) and Rockford, Ill., (0.2 percentage points).