The serious rate of mortgage delinquency improved last month and now stands near the lowest level in a decade. Junior lien performance was also better.
The Composite Consumer Credit Default Index, a measure of 90-day delinquency on consumer credit, was 0.89 percent as of September.
That was a big improvement from the previous month, when serious delinquency was 0.96 percent, and the same month last year, when the rate was 1.04 percent.
The index
was released Tuesday by S&P Dow Jones Indices and Experian.
Among five of the largest cities, 90-day delinquency plummeted the most from August in Miami: 39 basis points to 1.07 percent.
Chicago’s 1.09 percent rate was the highest, and Dallas’ 0.71 percent rate was the lowest.
On first mortgages, the U.S. rate of serious delinquency was 0.76 percent last month, tumbling from 0.84 percent a month earlier.
David M. Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, noted in the report that default rates on mortgages are near the lowest level in 10 years.
A year earlier, the first-mortgage rate was 0.93 percent.
Second mortgage delinquency dropped 10 BPS to 0.47 percent as of Sept. 30.
As of Sept. 30, 2014, serious second-mortgage delinquency was 0.52 percent.
“Debt services ratios — the proportion of income going to paying down consumer credit and mortgage debt — are close to the lowest on record since the Fed began collecting the data in 1980,” Blitzer stated. “At the same time, consumer credit and mortgage debt outstanding are rising.”
