Last year was a good year for mortgage servicers. Serious delinquency declined, fewer foreclosures were filed, and repossessions retreated.
The 90-day delinquency rate, including foreclosures and real estate owned, finished 2012 at 6.4 percent.
Late payments improved from November, when delinquency was a revised 6.5 percent. In addition, delinquency was down from a revised 7.3 percent at the end of 2011.
The statistics, reported by CoreLogic, contrast data in the S&P/Experian Credit Default Indices that indicated 90-day first-mortgage delinquency climbed to 1.68 percent at the end of December from the prior month’s 1.58 percent. That report also said that second-mortgage delinquency rose to 0.69 percent from 0.62 percent.
CoreLogic reported that Florida had the worst 90-day delinquency rate of any state: 15.1 percent. Among the 25-biggest metropolitan statistical areas, the Orland-Kissimmee-Sanford, Fla., MSA had the highest rate: 15.5 percent. Also helping to elevate Florida’s rate was the No. 2 MSA of Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, where the rate was 15.4 percent.
New Jersey’s 11.4 percent delinquency was the second-worst of any state, followed by 11.0 percent in Nevada and 8.6 percent in Illinois.
Rounding out the five-worst states was New York’s 8.4 percent delinquency rate. Helping push up the Empire State’s rate was the Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y., MSA, where the rate was 10.7 percent — the third-worst MSA.
At the other end of the scale was Wyoming’s 1.9 percent rate, while the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, Colo., area’s 3.2 percent 90-day rate was the lowest of any MSA.
At 2.9 percent, the U.S. foreclosure rate was lower than 3.0 percent at the end of November and a revised 3.4 percent as of Dec. 31, 2011.
REOs, meanwhile, had a rate of 0.4 percent, the same as the previous month but better than 0.6 percent at the same point in the previous year.
Pre-foreclosure filings amounted to 117,000, worsening from the 115,000 filings in November and 112,000 one year prior.
Full-year filings slipped to 1,473,000 from the 1,518,000 pre-foreclosure filings in 2011 and the 2,097,000 filings in 2010.
Mortgage servicers completed 56,000 foreclosures in December, fewer than prior month’s 58,000 and the 71,000 foreclosures completed in December 2011.
For all of 2012, repossessions fell to 767,000 from a revised 917,000 the previous year. In 2010, the total was a revised 1,128,000.
