IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Five point seven percent of all U.S. mortgages were delinquent in February, according to data released this week.
That number, which represents multiple stages of delinquency, was a 2.1 percent increase from February 2020, Irvine-based CoreLogic reported.
Early stage delinquencies – 30 to 59 days past due – were at 1.5 percent, down from 1.8 percent one year earlier. Mortgages 60 to 89 days past due accounted for 0.5 percent of the country’s delinquent mortgages, down only one-tenth of one percent from February 2020.
Serious delinquencies – more than 90 days overdue, including foreclosures -were at 3.7 percent, up from 1.2 percent from February 2020. Mortgages in foreclosure were 0.3 percent, essentially unchanged year-over-year.
“Some families that had overspent during the year-end holiday season, and then faced financial stress in the new year, may slip behind on a mortgage payment by February,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic, in a statement. “During each of the last five years, the 30-day delinquency rate moved higher from January to February. With economic conditions improving, we expect delinquency rates to move lower in coming months.”
In the Inland Empire, serious delinquencies accounted for 3.9 percent of the region’s trouble mortgages, a three-percent year-over-year increase. The 0.2 percent foreclosure rate was down one-tenth of a percentage point from the previous year, according to CoreLogic.
