The rate of home loans that were past-due at least two months fell to the lowest level in three years. Some of the biggest improvement was seen in states with the worst delinquency rates.
Residential delinquency of at least 60 days finished the first quarter at 5.78 percent.
It was the lowest rate of past-due payments since the first-quarter 2009, when the rate was 5.22 percent.
TransUnion, which reported the numbers, said the delinquency rate was 6.01 percent three months earlier and 6.19 percent a year earlier.
TransUnion said it randomly sampled its database of 27 million consumer records each with more than 200 credit variables.
Florida was the state with the worst first-quarter delinquency rate: 13.87 percent. Still, that was an improvement from the fourth quarter’s 14.27 percent.
Nevada was No. 2 with an 11.16 percent rate, also better than the prior period when the Silver State’s rate was 12.08 percent.
New Jersey was next with 8.31 percent, then 7.11 percent in Maryland.
At the low end of the scale was North Dakota, where the 60-day rate was 1.51 percent as of March 31.
TransUnion said that the average U.S. mortgage loan was $188,196 in the first quarter, just $2 more than the Dec. 31 figure.
