Mortgage Delinquencies Hit Another Record In 3Q

NEW YORK — The pace at which people fell behind on their mortgages slowed during the summer for the third consecutive quarter, but the overall delinquency rate hit another record, a new report shows.

For the three months ended Sept. 30, 6.25 percent of U.S. mortgage loans were 60 or more days past due, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion. That's up 58 percent from 3.96 percent a year ago.

Being two months behind is considered a first step toward foreclosure, because it's so hard to catch up with payments at that point.

The rate was up 7.6 percent from the second quarter. That's a much smaller jump than the 11.3 percent rise in the second quarter from the first, and the 14 percent leap seen in the quarter before that.

While the slowing growth rate is a positive sign, the increase shows there's still a lot of problematic mortgages out there, said F.J. Guarrera, vice president of TransUnion's financial services division. The company doesn't expect the figure to start declining until the middle of 2010.

Two things must get better before mortgage delinquency rates start reversing themselves, he said: home values and unemployment. "Until we see improvement in both of those areas, it's possible that it will take longer for delinquency to improve," Guarrera said.

The statistics, which are culled from TransUnion's database of 27 million consumer records, show that mortgage delinquencies remain highest in the four states where the crisis has hit the worst.

_ In Nevada, the rate reached 14.5 percent, up from 7.7 percent a year ago.

_ In Florida, the rate was 13.3 percent, up from 7.8 percent last year.

_ In Arizona, the rate hit 10.4 percent, up from 5.5 percent in 2008.

_ In California, the rate jumped to 10.2 percent, from 5.8 percent last year.

North Dakota remained the state where mortgage holders most often paid on time, with just 1.7 percent delinquency, up from 1.4 percent last year.

TransUnion expects delinquency to rise to just short of 7 percent for the fourth quarter, compared with 4.6 percent for the 2008 fourth quarter. The rate may reach 16 percent in Nevada. Those states with the highest delinquency and foreclosure rates will likely continue to see depressed housing prices.

The average mortgage debt per borrower nationwide edged up to $193,121 in the third quarter, from $192,287 last year. The District of Columbia had the highest average mortgage debt per borrower at $359,788. The lowest average mortgage debt per borrower was in West Virginia at $97,265.

Comments

[Stop Wall Street]

Once again, Obama fails to make progress with anything. All this traveling is a waste of tax payer dollars and never brings any resolution. We need less free trade and more manufacturing in America.

hat tip to http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com
Meanwhile, wall street makes record revenues and profits while unemployment shows no signs of abating. What a joke.

[FreeSpeech4All]

No surprise here. As long as people continue to lose their jobs and face financial ruin due to medical bills, foreclosures will continue to rise. As long as the fraudulent mortgages continue to contaminate the housing sector, expect to see more of the same.

Meanwhile, the disconnect on the part of our government is breathtaking. While Americans are losing jobs by the hundreds of thousands each month, Obama holds a jobs summit in Shanghai. HUH? Rome is burning and Nero is fiddling. Millions of real people out here are suffering real pain, and all our government will do is make deals with corporations and banksters behind closed doors.

This is what happens when apathetic citizens sit around passively, watching their country circle the drain.

[tonycartman]

This is something that was predicted. People aren't having money to honor their debts due to the unemployment situation and the delinquency only goes up

Regards,
Tony
http://www.foreclosurelistings.com/

[stargazer13]

problematic mortgages Sir may I just say there was nothing wrong with my mortgage !!

it was the loss of my job ! that caused me to be among your statistics

[patinadust]

Ditto! I have payed my mortgage for 25 tyears as a single parent until I became unemployed this year.

Now, I will loose everything.

[viper234]

When the big banks were on the verge of "foreclosure," government said not doling out trillions of taxpayer dollars to these institutions was the ONLY way to avert "economic disaster." Yet considering 1 foreclosure filing is taking place every 13 seconds in America, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, with more than 6,600 filings taking place per day with no signs of easing any time soon, the silence and benign indifference by government to the nation's worst housing crisis since record-keepers began tracking such data in the late 19th century, is astounding. Equally astounding is the benign indifference to unrelenting unemployment and the fact that 1 in 6 Americans is suffering from hunger.

So the government's definition of "ending the recession" is saving the financial sector, but it's fine for The Great Depression to ravage Main Street in the form of record unemployment, with accompanying record home foreclosures and an unconscionable percentage of Americans going hungry. There is a massive gulf between government and the people they work for. Part of "going green" in America should include finding "new sources of energy" from among the people to represent our best interests in Washington. It's time to "end our dependence" on old-style, corrupt, legislative bureaucrats in Congress.

[stargazer13]

GOOD POST !

AWARDED!

TO YOU !!

[patinadust]

Excellent !! and well said.

Any solutions?

[Starbux4eva]

Look at the stock market booming. Someone is getting very rich. They gave em billions of free money to bid up stocks. Woohoo !

There wll be hell to pay when the ponzi scheme with the US Treasuries implodes under the zooming mountain of debt that can never be repaid.

The US must now borrow 400 bil dollars a year just to pay interest on outstanding debt.

Madoff is childs play, comparing to this scam that will take economy into oblivion one day. And sooner rather then later. But its ok, Obama will print Wall Street new money to play with.

[mrspiffy]

Reversion to the mean. A house is shelter. NOT an investment.

http://yieldpig.blogspot.com/

[patinadust]

Whatever - I am still loosing my "Shelter" that I have paid on for 25 years because of unemployment.

There do you feel better now.

I have been a single parent for 25 yrs. 2 kids - paid all my bills and worked always. No investment here pal and no help from anyone eirther. Just trying to live and send kids to college.

And whatever equity that I did have to help since I have no pension is gone now.

Say hello to your next homeless, bag woman. Upper management, college educated, hard worker. Wish I had goofed off more now.

[Papa Swamp]

And the taxpayer is the main backer...... Fannie and Freddie with huge losses...needs more taxpayer money, FHA...in the hole..needs bailout. So why do we continue with more bad loans?!

The President needs to step in and say stop!

And don't tell me bad loan practices have stopped..they have not stopped.
Read:
http://www.businessinsider.com/20-year-old-buys-home-with-183000-fha-loan-and-just-35-down-2009-10
and
http://www.insurancenewsnet.com/article.asp?n=1&innID=1059793061
and
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/352663/The-Next-Big-Bailout-FHA-Facing-%22Cataclysmic%22-Default-Rates?tickers=FNM,FRE,XHB,TOL,PHM”

[amaycatbaker]

Depression.

[Vinkaye]

Is that how we all feel, or the state of the economy?

[karen1p]

BOTH

[stargazer13]

20 min in the sun for the body is like 2 weeks at the beach for the mind

nation part I have not figured out yet

I know if we do come back it won,t be an easy come back

because we are all so exhausted all ready !!

most I have talked to don,t even want to try any more I call it a bad case of down trodden they assure me

that it,s not it , they say the game is rigged and you can not win so why play !!! they hate banks they hate insurance companies they feel there is No rule of law for if there was certain things would have never of happened .let alone go unpunished yes we are both I am afraid . hey sitting in the sun is still free that the bright side !!

[patinadust]

Sun and going for a good, long, hard run daily.

My body and my mind will stay sharp in spite of it all. Although the anxiety still has a way of creeping back up on you when you least expect it .

[FreedomCorpse]

No jobs, no income, no positive improvement ... its called math

[Egalitare]

When the Money Changers take assets from the masses it's called "sound business practices." When we suggest the Money Changers pay higher taxes to offset the massive economic dislocations they've created, they call it "confiscation."

[FreedomCorpse]

aye, as Scotty would say. When the government prints up massive amounts of money to bailout the financial system they say they are 'saving' the system but the debasement of the currency was considered punishable by death in the coinage act of 1792. The founders of the country understood monetary policy, republicans and democrats of today...not so much

[Flavor]

Now something that is never mentioned is this, even if the employment rate gets better, a lot of people credit has been jacked up by this, who in the hell is gonna wanna sell a house to someone who made a mistake and lost their homes and because of this has bad credit. We are in a mess, and we need people to be given a second chance, another thing the banks allowed these people to loose their homes and did not want to negotiate with them, now you have more than five or six homes on a street empty and desolate, a crying shame. So, this is flavor's observation only, it will take about another 5 years before we will see some release in our economy, it took 8 years to get in this shape and it will take double that to completely see our way out, it's gonna take the American people being re-trained because the jobs that were, aren't coming back and that's a fact. I also would like to see our President, really express concerns with the other countries who are selling their goods to us, and are not buying our goods, they make a mint off of us and they don't buy our goods as fast as we buy theirs.These are just my opinions.