Early data on August delinquency indicates that past-due payments on home loans have now declined for three months in a row and stand more than 130 basis points lower than they did a year ago.
There were 5,450,000 loans that were either past due at least 30 days or in the foreclosure process as of last month. The volume of delinquent loans fell from July, when the number of borrowers who were late on their mortgage payments was 5,562,000.
It was the third consecutive month that the total was lower.
The number of past-due mortgages has fallen substantially from 6,397,000 in August 2011.
Delinquency data was extrapolated based on Lenders Processing Services Inc.’s Applied Analytics’ loan-level database of mortgage assets.
At 10.91 percent, August total delinquency, including foreclosures, improved from a month earlier when the rate was 11.11 percent.
A year earlier, delinquency stood at 12.24 percent.
Delinquency rates were worst in Florida, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada and New York.
Loan performance was best in the states of Montana, Alaska, South Dakota, Wyoming and North Dakota.
Last month’s U.S. rate reflected 30-day delinquency, excluding foreclosures, of 6.87 percent, better than 7.03 percent in July.
The foreclosure pre-sale inventory rate fell to 4.04 percent from 4.08 percent.
