Continued Drop in Mortgage Lates, Foreclosures

Residential loans that were at least 90 days past due accounted for 2.5 percent of all U.S. mortgages that were outstanding as of Oct. 31.

The rate of serious mortgage delinquency turned out to be the lowest that it has been since August 2007 based on historical performance data.

CoreLogic Inc. provided the metrics in its National Foreclosure Report October 2016.

As of the prior month, the 90-day rate was 2.6 percent, while it was 3.4 percent a year prior.

At 5.7 percent, New Jersey had the highest foreclosure rate in October 2016. After that was 5.1 percent in New York, followed by 4.1 percent in Mississippi, 3.8 percent in Louisiana and 3.7 percent in Maine.

Colorado and North Dakota shared the lowest rate: 1.0 percent.

Around 328,000 U.S. homes were in some stage of foreclosure as of the latest period. The total was 340,000 at the end of September 2016 and an upwardly revised 479,000 when October 2015 concluded.

It was the 60th straight month that the foreclosure inventory has fallen on a year-over-year basis.

The most-recent activity left the foreclosure rate at 0.8 percent as of month-end October 2016.
The rate retreated from 0.9 percent a month earlier and 1.2 percent a year earlier.

In
New Jersey, the foreclosure rate was 2.8 percent in October 2016 — the worst rate in the nation. Next was New York’s 2.7 percent, then Hawaii’s 1.7 percent, Maine’s 1.7 percent and the District of Columbia’s 1.6 percent.

Five states — Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Utah — shared the lowest foreclosure rate: 0.3 percent.

Mortgage servicers completed 30,000 U.S. foreclosures during the most-recent month. Real-estate-owned filings tumbled from an upwardly revised 41,000 in September 2016 and the upwardly revised 40,000 in October 2015.

CoreLogic continued to highlight that despite ongoing improvements in repossessions, the rate remains elevated versus the 21,000 average monthly rate between 2000 and 2006.