The proportion of residential loans that were considered to be non-current has declined for five consecutive months. The latest month saw improvement in both the past-due rate and the foreclosure pre-sale inventory rate.
Residential delinquency of at least 30 days, including the foreclosure pre-sale inventory, was 10.18 percent as of Feb. 28.
The 30-day rate improved from the previous month, when delinquency was 10.44 percent. Delinquency has been down each month since September 2012, when the rate was 11.27 percent.
Improvement was been made from a year earlier, when the total delinquency rate was 11.70 percent.
The statistics were reported by Lender Processing Services Inc., which says its loan-level database represents around 70 percent of the overall mortgage market.
The states with the highest delinquency levels were Florida, New Jersey, Mississippi, Nevada and New York.
The states with the lowest rate of non-current loans were Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota and North Dakota.
Reflected in the total U.S. delinquency rate was a 30-day rate, excluding foreclosures, of 6.80 percent.
Thirty-day delinquency declined from 7.03 as of Jan. 31 and 7.57 percent at the same point in 2012.
There were 3,410,000 properties classified as 30 days past due in the most recent report.
The foreclosure pre-sale inventory was 1,694,000 properties as of Feb. 28, putting the rate at 3.38 percent.
The prior month’s inventory rate was 3.41 percent, while it stood at 4.13 percent as of Feb. 29, 2012.
