For the month of April, 2.9% of all mortgages in the U.S. were in some stage of delinquency (30 days or more past due, including those in foreclosure), representing a 1.8 percentage point decrease compared to 4.7% in April 2021, according to the latest Loan Performance Insights Report for April 2022 from CoreLogic, release this past week.
Additional key findings from the report:
- Early-Stage Delinquencies (30 to 59 days past due): 1.2%, up from 1% April 2021.
- Adverse Delinquency (60 to 89 days past due): 0.3%, unchanged from April 2021.
- Serious Delinquency (90 days or more past due, including loans in foreclosure): 1.4%, down from 3.3% in April 2021 and a high of 4.3% in August 2020.
- Foreclosure Inventory Rate (the share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process): 0.3%, unchanged from April 2021.
- Transition Rate (the share of mortgages that transitioned from current to 30 days past due): 0.7%, up from 0.6% in April 2021.
State and metro findings
- In April, all states posted annual declines in their overall delinquency rate.
- The states with the largest declines were Nevada (down 3.2 percentage points), Hawaii (down 3 percentage points) and New Jersey (down 2.7 percentage points).
- The remaining states, including the District of Columbia, registered annual delinquency rate drops between 2.6 percentage points and 0.7 percentage points.
- All U.S. metro areas posted at least a small annual decrease in overall delinquency rates, with Odessa, Texas (down 5 percentage points), Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina, Hawaii (down 4.9 percentage points) and Midland, Texas (down 4.3 percentage points) posting the largest decreases.
The takeaway:
Double-digit annual home price gains for more than the past year resulted in continually increasing equity gains in the first quarter, helping keep U.S. overall mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates near an all-time low in April, CoreLogic stated. Although delinquency and foreclosure numbers were unchanged from March 2022 and last April, both rose slightly from late 2021. This small shift in foreclosure numbers partially reflects lenders ending their forbearance periods for extremely delinquent borrowers rather than the overall health of what remains a relatively solid housing market, according to the report.
“The U.S. foreclosure rate edged up in spring 2022 after hitting a historic low at the end of 2021,” said Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic. “Moratoria and forbearance that helped keep homeowners out of foreclosure are expiring for many borrowers, but ongoing strong employment numbers and large amounts of equity should keep foreclosure rates low moving forward.”
