Serious U.S. Mortgage Delinquencies Fall to Five-Year Low
By Prashant Gopal - Aug 8, 2013
The share of U.S. mortgages that are seriously delinquent plunged to the lowest level in almost five years as improving employment and rising home prices move the foreclosure crisis closer to an end.
The percentage of home loans that were more than 90 days behind or in the foreclosure process fell to 5.88 percent in the second quarter from 7.31 percent a year earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a report today. That was the lowest since the third quarter of 2008, when it was 5.17 percent.
“It’s a dramatic improvement over last year,” said Jay Brinkmann, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s chief economist, said in a telephone interview today from Washington. “It’s not back to where we should be. It’s not back to where we were. But it’s a major decline.”
The housing recovery has given delinquent borrowers a reason to catch up on payments or seek loan modifications as home prices increase at the fastest pace since 2006. The share of U.S. homeowners who owe more than their properties are worth fell to less than 20 percent in the first quarter as values surged in hard-hit markets, according to CoreLogic Inc.
Property prices are climbing as investors and traditional buyers compete for a tight supply of listings. U.S. home prices jumped almost 12 percent in June from a year earlier, the 16th consecutive gain, Irvine, California-based CoreLogic said on Aug. 6. States that were among the most affected by the foreclosure crisis -- Nevada, California, Arizona and Georgia -- had some of the biggest increases.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-08/serious-u-s-mortgage-delinquencies-fall-to-five-year-low.html
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