Americans are borrowing more to finance homes and doing a better job of paying their loans on time.
The average balance on all U.S. residential loans was $187,139 as of the fourth quarter of last year.
Borrowers pushed the average up from $186,299 in the third-quarter 2014 and from $185,496 in the fourth-quarter 2013.
TransUnion reported the mortgage data.
“It continues a recent trend of yearly growth, as this metric stood at $183,339 in Q4 2012,” the report stated. “The greatest mortgage balance increases were seen in the super prime risk category, where balances rose approximately 3 percent in the last year.”
TransUnion Vice President Ezra Becker explained in the report that much of the increase was due to jumbo borrowers who took advantage of low interest rates to finance home purchases.
Data from Mortgage Daily’s Mortgage Market Index indicate that interest rates on jumbo loans during the early part of the fourth quarter were as much as 12 basis points less than on conforming loans.
California’s $325,440 average balance was the highest among five of the largest states by population.
TransUnion reported 53.2 million mortgages outstanding as of the most-recent period, more than the 52.9 million outstanding as of the final quarter of 2013. Still, the number of loans is well short of the 59.6 million outstanding loans as of the fourth-quarter 2009.
Borrowers who were past due at least 60 days on their home loans accounted for 3.29 percent of all borrowers in the fourth quarter.
Mortgage delinquency
improved from the prior period, when the 60-day rate was 3.36 percent.
TransUnion noted that it was
12th consecutive quarter that the rate of late payments declined.
In the fourth-quarter 2013,
60-day delinquency stood at 3.84 percent.
Becker said that the improvement is being primarily driven by a clearing out of the foreclosure backlog.
Borrowers who are younger than 30 years old saw a 71-basis-point year-over-year drop in delinquency
— the biggest improvement of any age group.
Among the largest states, Florida’s 5.95 percent fourth-quarter 2014 rate was highest — though it improved by 222 basis points from a year earlier. Helping the Sunshine State was Miami, which had the biggest year-over-year drop of any major metropolitan statistical area: 322 BPS.
California’s 2.33 percent rate was lowest among large states.
