The rate of delinquency on residential loans has moved lower each of the last 11 quarters. While the country’s collective servicing portfolio sits well below its pre-crisis level, it has recently been on the rise.
Home loans that were at least 60 days past due accounted for 3.36 percent of all U.S. mortgages during the third quarter.
The 60-day delinquency rate retreated from the second quarter, when it stood at 3.42 percent.
TransUnion, which reported the performance statistics, noted that the 60-day rate has improved each of the last 11 quarters.
In the third-quarter 2013, the rate of late payments was 4.03 percent.
“New mortgage cohorts over the past several years have been squeaky clean from a risk perspective,” TransUnion Vice President of Mortgage Joe Mellman explained in the report. “This fact, combined with the continuing clearance of the foreclosure backlog and the gradual but steady rise in home values, serves to drive the ongoing trend toward lower mortgage delinquency rates overall.”
Among the five largest states, Florida’s 6.42 percent delinquency rate was the worst — though that was an big decline over the 9.01 percent rate in place during the same three-month period last year.
Helping the Sunshine State’s improvement was the Miami market, where delinquency declined by nearly a third from a year earlier.
California’s 2.46 percent rate was the lowest.
As of the most-recent period, there were 53.2 million mortgages outstanding.
But while the nation’s book of business expanded from 52.3 million in the third-quarter 2013 — it stood well below the 63.1 million loans outstanding as of the third-quarter 2008.
