Past-due payments on first mortgages rose last month for the fourth month in a row. Also deteriorating was the serious delinquency rate on second mortgages.
Ninety-day delinquency on consumer credit products was 0.94 percent in March, according to the
Composite Consumer Credit Default Index.
The index — which reflects performance on first and second mortgages, bank cards and auto loans — was also reported at 0.94 percent as of February.
Consumer credit delinquency has inched up, however, from 0.93 percent in March 2016.
Those details were derived from the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices.
“Currently the debt-service ratio for consumer credit — the percentage of disposable income required to service consumer credit debt — is 5.58 percent, up from its recent low of 4.92 percent in 2012 but lower than the 6.01 percent peak seen shortly before the financial crisis,” David M. Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in the report. “The higher interest rates that most analysts expect over 2017-2018 are likely to combine with continued growth in consumer credit to push the debt service ratio back towards the 6 percent level.”
Among the five-biggest metropolitan statistical areas, serious consumer delinquency was up 15 basis points to 1.09 percent in New York — the worst increase of any MSA.
The highest rate, 1.40 percent, was in Miami, though the area saw a two-basis-point decline from February.
Los Angeles experienced the biggest month-over-month decline in its 90-day consumer delinquency: 5 BPS to 0.75 percent — the lowest of any MSA.
U.S. first-mortgage 90-day delinquency finished last month at 0.75 percent, creeping up from 0.74 percent as of Feb. 28. The rate has moved up each month since November 2016, when it was 0.70 percent.
But there has been improvement since March 2016, when the rate was
0.77 percent.
On second mortgages, the 90-day rate jumped 6 BPS to 0.57 percent.
The rate has risen each month since January, when it was 0.48 percent. Second-mortgage delinquency retreated, however, from this month last year, when the rate was 0.59 percent.
