Delinquency on residential loans turned sharply lower last month as the impact from last year’s hurricanes shifted to new foreclosure filings.
At the conclusion of March, the number of single-family loans that were either at least a month past due or in foreclosure was 2.232 million.
Included in the non-current total were 1.912 million loans
that were at least 30 days delinquent but not in foreclosure and 321,000 loans in the foreclosure pre-sale inventory.
The performance data was reported Thursday by Black Knight Inc.
Based on Black Knight’s data, Mortgage Daily estimates that the total number of outstanding U.S. mortgages was 51.192 million as of March 31.
Black Knight’s data indicate that the non-current rate was 4.36 percent, sinking from 4.95 percent at the end of February. Delinquency was also lower than 4.50 percent at the same point last year.
At
9.45 percent, Mississippi had the highest non-current rate of any state last month. After that was Louisiana’s 7.76 percent, followed by Florida’s 7.15 percent, Alabama’s 6.66 percent and West Virginia’s 6.06 percent.
Colorado’s
1.82 percent rate was the lowest in the nation.
Excluding foreclosures, the U.S. 30-day rate as of March 31, 2018,
was 3.73 percent — plunging 57 basis points from a month earlier. The decline was attributed to seasonal effects and continued hurricane-related improvements. But the 30-day rate deteriorated by 11 BPS from a year earlier.
Ninety-day delinquency, including foreclosures, landed at an estimated 1.23 percent.
The foreclosure pre-sale inventory rate dipped 2 BPS from February to 0.63 percent, while the rate sank 25 BPS from March 2017.
Servicers initiated 52,100 new foreclosures last month, more than the prior month’s 46,700. Black Knight noted that the impact of the hurricanes shifted from delinquency to foreclosures.
During the first-three months of this year, there have been 161,100 foreclosure starts.
