The size of the nation’s foreclosure inventory was trimmed last month as the level of past-due payments on home loans moved lower.
There were 3,097,000 U.S. residential loans that were at least 30 days past due or in the foreclosure process as of Dec. 31, 2015.
That was 92,000 fewer that at the end of the previous month. A similar
decline this month could cut the total to less than 3 million.
The non-current count has plummeted by 618,000 loans since December 2014.
Black Knight Financial Services released the data Friday.
The latest reading put the non-current rate at
6.15 percent, down from 6.30 percent at the end of November and 7.25 percent at the end of 2014.
In Mississippi, 12.33 percent of all loans were classified as non-current — the worst rate in the country last month. Next was New Jersey’s 10.13 percent, then Louisiana’s 9.90 percent, Maine’s 8.90 percent and New York’s 8.79 percent.
A 2.17 percent non-current rate in North Dakota was the lowest in the country.
Excluding foreclosures, there were 2.408 million U.S. loans that were delinquent as of December 2015, making the 30-day rate 4.78 percent.
Thirty-day delinquency was
4.92 percent a month earlier and 5.64 percent a year earlier.
At the end of last year, there were 689,000 properties in the foreclosure pre-sale inventory, leaving the foreclosure rate at 1.37 percent.
The foreclosure rate
improved from 1.38 percent as of Nov. 30, 2015, and 1.61 percent as of year-end 2014.
