It’s Not Over – Mortgage Delinquencies Continue Their Climb

According to TransUnion, a top rated credit reporting agency, 6.89% of mortgage payments were Sixty or more days past due in the Fourth Quarter of 2009, up from 4.58% in the final 3 months of 2008.

The prior record delinquency rate was 6.25% in the third quarter of 2009.

FJ Guarrera, vice president of TransUnion’s financial services business unit, says the fourth quarter boost was due in part to typical seasonal buying shifts. People are more inclined to have trouble paying bills during the last few months of the year as they run low on money because of holiday expenses. But he says that still accounting for normal season patterns, there is a lot of reason to be troubled about the speed of increase shifting higher. “To see continuing growth in the first quarter would certainly raise an eyebrow.”

TransUnion tracks mortgages that are two months past due as an indicator of likely foreclosure, because of the difficulty involved in hunting down three installment payments to bring an account present. The company said the delinquency rate stayed strongest in Nevada, at 16.2%, and Florida, at 14.9%. Arizona and California, the other 2 states hit hardest by the housing crisis, were third and fourth, at 11.3% and 11% respectively.

The greatest growth rates when compared with the third quarter were in the District of Columbia, Louisiana and Delaware.

Guarrera mentioned that many homeowners still have adjustable rate mortgages (ARM’s) made in late 2006 or early 2007 due to recast to higher rates in coming months and that could drive foreclosures even higher, especially where home prices have fallen to the point where values are lower than mortgages.

We’re not out of the woods yet.

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• Adjustable Rate Mortgage Due? Need a Interest Rate Reduction When You Just Can’t Refinance
• Housing Inventory At Its Highest In 18 Years – Home Sales Fall
• Housing Starts Dropped to 14 Year Low, More Than Forecast
• World Mortgage And Interest Rate News, ABN AMRO Gets Thumbs Up

Tags: Foreclosure Market, Mortgage Defaults, Mortgage Delinquencies, Mortgage Implosion, Mortgage News, Mortgage Resets, Todays Economy

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It’s Not Over – Mortgage Delinquencies Continue Their Climb.