For the first time since the national housing crisis, the monthly pace of completed foreclosures has fallen back to pre-crisis levels.
Residential loans that were at least 90 days past due
accounted for 2.6 percent of all U.S. loans outstanding as of year-end 2016.
The rate of serious
mortgage delinquency turned out to be the lowest it’s been since June 2007 based on historical performance data.
CoreLogic Inc. reported the performance statistics Tuesday in its National Foreclosure Report December 2016.
Ninety-day delinquency was previously reported at 2.5 percent as of Nov. 30, though that figure has apparently been revised upward based on CoreLogic’s statement about December’s low.
In the final month of 2015, serious mortgage delinquency was 3.2 percent.
New Jersey’s 90-day rate as of the final month of 2016 was 5.7 percent, the worst of any state. After that was 5.1 percent in New York, then 4.6 percent in Louisiana, 4.3 percent in Mississippi and 3.7 percent in Florida.
At 1.0 percent, both Colorado and North Dakota shared the lowest rate of serious mortgage delinquency.
As of Dec. 31, 2016, there were 329,000 loans in some stage of foreclosure. The foreclosure inventory retreated from an upwardly revised 335,000 at the end of November 2016 and sank from an upwardly revised 467,000 as of the close of December 2015, marking the 62nd year-over-year decline.
At the latest inventory level, the foreclosure rate
worked out to 0.8 percent — the lowest rate since June 2007. The rate was previously reported at 0.8 percent as of Nov. 30, 2016, and an upwardly revised 1.2 percent as of year-end 2015.
The latest month’s foreclosure rate in New Jersey was 2.8 percent — the highest in the nation. Next was New York’s 2.7 percent, then Maine’s 1.8 percent, Hawaii’s 1.7 percent and the District of Columbia’s 1.6 percent.
At the other end of the spectrum was Colorado, where the foreclosure rate was just 0.2 percent.
Mortgage servicers completed 21,000 foreclosure in December 2016. The pace of repossessions has now returned to the pre-crisis level given that CoreLogic reports that the average monthly pace was 21,000 between 2000 and 2006.
Real-estate-owned filings fell from a downwardly revised 23,000 a month earlier and were far fewer than an upwardly revised 36,000 a year earlier.
Full-year completed foreclosures amounted to 384,161 in 2016, plunging from 476,419 previously reported for all of 2015.
