While mortgage delinquency is expected to nearly double by next year, the bottom of the delinquency cycle may occur by mid-2010.
Borrowers who were delinquent at least 60 days on their mortgages accounted for 3.96 percent of all mortgages during the third quarter, TransUnion.com reported today. Delinquency jumped from 3.53 percent in the second quarter and has soared from around 2.57 percent a year earlier.
Late payments have increased for seven consecutive quarters.
The findings were based on 27 million consumer records selected randomly from TransUnion’s database. More than 200 variables were analyzed.
Delinquency of 7.82 percent in Florida was higher than in any other state. Nevada was next, at 7.71 percent.
TransUnion Senior Consultant Keith Carson said in the report that waning consumer confidence as well as ailing labor and financial markets hurt loan performance. He also noted that more borrowers were unable to meet increasingly tighter lending standards.
North Dakota had the lowest state delinquency: 1.35 percent.
Carson predicted the U.S. delinquency rate would be 4.66 percent during the fourth quarter and pass 7.00 percent next year — about double the 3.53 percent reported in the second quarter this year.
“These numbers, which are more pessimistic than anticipated one quarter ago, are due to the significant weaknesses recently highlighted in the financial markets as the U.S. economy moves deeper into a recession,” Carson stated. “However … we see the possibility of a flattening of mortgage delinquencies as the economy begins to stabilize and some sectors of the country begin to improve in the second quarter of 2010.”
TransUnion reported average national mortgage debt at $192,287 per borrowers, with Washington, D.C., leading the states at $364,015 in average mortgage debt and West Virginia’s $94,910 trailing all other states.
