D-FW and U.S. Home Foreclosure Rates Are Continuing to Fall
Nationwide home foreclosure rates are the lowest in at least 20 years. And the percentage of Dallas-Fort Worth homes in foreclosure or facing forced sale is even lower than the national average, according to a new report from CoreLogic. Only 0.4% of U.S. home loans were in foreclosure in January. And in the D-FW area the foreclosure rate was half that at 0.2%. Nationwide 1.4% of homeowners with a loan were 90 days or more past due with payments. In D-FW only 1.2% of home loans were seriously delinquent in January, CoreLogic found. Higher home values and slowly increasing wages have reduced the number of residential properties threatened with foreclosure.
"As the economic expansion continues to create jobs and low mortgage rates support home buying this spring, delinquency rates are likely to trend lower during the coming year," Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic, said in the report. "The decline in delinquency rates has occurred in nearly all parts of the nation."
Fewer North Texas homeowners are running into mortgage issues because of the strength of the D-FW economy and increasing home values. During the worst of the recession in 2010, more than 5% of Dallas-area mortgages were seriously delinquent and about 1.5% of all loans were in foreclosure. Home foreclosure rates in January were highest in Miami (0.9%), Las Vegas (0.6%) and Chicago (0.6%). Houston still has one of the highest big-city home loan delinquency rates at 5% in January. "Income growth, home appreciation and sound underwriting combined have pushed delinquency rates to their lowest level in 20 years," said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. "The low delinquency rates on home mortgages are a contrast to the rising delinquency rates on consumer credit...
