The rate of serious mortgage delinquency, the foreclosure rate and the number of completed foreclosures all turned lower in the final month of 2015.
Residential loans that were at least 90 days past due finished last year at 3.2 percent of all mortgages.
That was according to CoreLogic Inc.’s National Foreclosure Report December 2015.
Serious delinquency
was down from the end of November, when the rate stood at a previously reported 3.3 percent.
The 90-day past-due rate on the nation’s home loans has tumbled 90 basis points compared to the previously reported rate as of Dec. 31, 2014.
With a 90-day rate of 7.5 percent, New Jersey had the highest rate of delinquency in the nation. Up next was New York, where serious delinquency finished last year at 6.2 percent. After that was 5.2 percent in Florida, 4.9 percent in Mississippi and 4.7 percent in Maine.
The country’s lowest 90-day rate was in North Dakota: 1.0 percent.
As of Dec. 31, 2015, there were 433,000 U.S. properties in some stage of foreclosure, fewer than the downwardly revised 444,000 homes in the foreclosure process as of Nov. 30.
At the end of 2014, the foreclosure inventory was an upwardly revised 568,000 mortgages.
The foreclosure inventory has receded from a year earlier for 50 consecutive months.
At the end of last year, the foreclosure inventory stood at 1.1 percent of all financed homes, improving from 1.2 percent previously reported for a month earlier.
As of Dec. 31, 2014, the foreclosure rate was an upwardly revised 1.5 percent.
CoreLogic noted that the latest foreclosure rate “is back to November 2007 levels.”
New Jersey
maintained its tight grip on the worst foreclosure rate: 4.2 percent. Next was New York’s 3.5 percent, then Hawaii’s 2.4 percent, Florida’s 2.3 percent and the District of Columbia’s 2.3 percent.
Alaska and Minnesota
shared the lowest foreclosure rate: 0.3 percent.
Completed U.S. foreclosures during the final month of 2015 totaled 32,000, off from an upwardly revised 34,000 in November.
In December 2014, there were an upwardly revised 41,000 real-estate-owned filings.
CoreLogic noted that repossessions were at “the lowest level since 2006.”
But the Santa Ana, California-based company kept REO levels in perspective, noting that average monthly completed foreclosures were 21,000 between 2000 and 2006.
