Consumers continue to resist the most affordable home-buying conditions in a half century. But the good news is that quarterly delinquency declined again and is expected to continue improving — though not in Florida.
U.S. mortgage originations have fallen by nearly half from a year ago, TransUnion reported today. While all states felt the decline, the impact was less severe in North Dakota — where production was down 27 percent.
Idaho and Wisconsin each experienced the most dramatic decline: 59 percent.
In the report, TransUnion executive FJ Guarrera called it “ironic” that home purchases haven’t surged even though record-low mortgage rates and lower home prices have combined to increase home affordability to the best level in 50 years.
“Tighter lending standards and increased documentation scrutiny have made it difficult for many consumers to qualify for a mortgage,” Guarrera explained.
The rate of 60-day delinquency on residential loans came in at 6.67 percent in the second quarter. The level of late payments improved for the second consecutive quarter from 6.77 percent three months earlier.
TransUnion said the decline suggests the housing sector might have started to stabilize.
But the rate was worse than 5.81 percent a year ago.
The credit repository sees 60-day lates continuing to drift down nationally to around 6.4 percent by the fourth quarter.
The findings were determined from an analysis of approximately 27 million individual credit files which TransUnion said were anonymous and randomly sampled. The sampling reportedly represents around 10 percent of credit-active consumers in the country.
Nevada’s 15.86 percent delinquency was worse than any state but better than 15.98 percent three months earlier.
Not far behind was Florida, where delinquency jumped to 15.02 percent from 14.65 percent. TransUnion predicts the Sunshine State will reach 16.2 percent by the end of this year.
In all, 12 states saw delinquency increase from the prior quarter.
The best delinquency rate was in North Dakota: 1.61 percent. Past-due loans fell from 1.76 percent in the previous period and are expected to end 2010 at 1.5 percent.
The report indicated that 90- and 120-day delinquency improved nationally “for the first time since before the recession began in 2007.”
The average U.S. borrower owed $191,284 on their home, easing from the first quarter’s $192,774. A year prior, the average mortgage size was $193,811.
Washington, D.C.’s, $366,627 average mortgage debt was highest, and West Virginia’s $99,206 was lowest.
