CoreLogic today released its latest Loan Performance Insights Report, which showed that mortgages in some stage of delinquency (meaning the borrower has failed to make payments) dropped 0.1 percent year-over-year to 5.1 percent in November 2017, while delinquency rates in states impacted by hurricane season are still much higher than the national average.
Early-stage delinquencies (30-59 days past due) also fell 0.1 percentage points from October, and the share of mortgages 60-89 days past due remained unchanged month-over-month (0.9 percent) and increased 0.7 percent year-over-year. Lastly, serious delinquencies (90-plus days past due) increased 0.1 percent month-over-month to 2.0, but remained lower than November 2016 (2.3 percent).
CoreLogic chief economist Dr. Frank Nothaft says the dip in early-stage delinquencies is a signal that the impact of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria on overall loan performance insights is starting to fade. But states directly impacted by the hurricanes — including Florida and Texas — in addition to Puerto Rico, are still struggling with higher serious delinquency rates.
Source: CoreLogic
Serious delinquency rates state by state. Source: CoreLogic
“The effects of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria appear clearly in our mortgage delinquency report,” said Nothaft in a statement. “Serious delinquency rates are up sharply in Texas and Florida compared with a year ago, while lower in all other states except Alaska.”
“In Puerto Rico, the serious delinquency rate jumped to 6.3 percent in November, up 2.7 percentage points compared with a year before,” he added. “In the Miami metropolitan area, serious delinquency was up more than one-third from one year earlier to 5.1 percent, and it more than doubled to 4.6 percent in the Houston area.”
Source: CoreLogic
Furthermore, transition rates for mortgages that went from current to 30 days past due dipped 0.1 percentage points to 1.0 percent in November, while 60-day and 90-day transition rates increased 8.7 percent year-over-year.
“Transition rates for 60-day and 90-day delinquency, while stable across most of the country, were up sharply in many areas impacted by the 2017 hurricanes,” said CoreLogic president and CEO Frank Martell in a press release. “In many of the harder-hit regions, such as the Houston and Miami metropolitan areas, housing stock availability has taken a hit as many homes were damaged and are no longer habitable.”
“As a result, we expect to see further upward pressure on prices and rents for habitable homes, which will continue to erode affordability.”
Finally, the mortgage foreclosure rate, which measures the share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process, also declined 0.2 percent year-over-year to 0.6 percent — unchanged for four months straight and the lowest level since June 2007 (0.6 percent).