Core Logic Reports U.S. Annual Delinquency Rates Fell
- Preceding the global coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, overall delinquency rates in January reached their lowest level in more than 20 years
- The U.S. serious delinquency rate in January remained at its lowest level since April 2000
- North Carolina and Mississippi posted the largest annual declines in overall delinquency rates
CoreLogic® (NYSE: CLGX), a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today released its monthly Loan Performance Insights Report. The report shows that nationally, 3.5% of mortgages were in some stage of delinquency (30 days or more past due, including those in foreclosure) in January 2020, representing a 0.5 percentage point decline in the overall delinquency rate compared with January 2019, when it was 4%. This marked 25 consecutive months of annual declines and was the lowest for a January in more than 20 years.
The mortgage market experienced a strong year of improvement in loan performance during 2019 – carrying over into the first month of 2020. However, mounting job losses since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a national emergency has raised the possibility of many borrowers falling behind on their mortgage payments in coming months.
“Home loan delinquency and foreclosure rates were the lowest in a generation before the COVID-19 pandemic hit,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic. “Recession-induced job losses will fuel delinquencies. However, wide-spread foreclosures across America will likely be averted because of the home equity buffer that homeowners have and the available forbearance programs. Our Home Equity Report found that at the start of 2020, homeowners with a mortgage also had an average of $177,000 in home equity.”
As of January 2020, the foreclosure inventory rate, which measures the share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process, was 0.4% – unchanged from January 2019. January’s foreclosure inventory rate tied the prior 14 months as the lowest for any month since at least January 1999...
