Mortgage delinquencies drop slightly

Four percent of all mortgages nationwide were in some state of delinquency in March, a .3 percent decline year-over-year, according to data released Tuesday.

That was the lowest rate of delinquency – 30 days or more past due, including foreclosures – for March in 13 years, CoreLogic in Irvine reported.

Also in March, the foreclosure inventory nationwide was 0.4 percent, down 0.2 percentage points compared with March 2018. March of this year was the fifth consecutive month that the national foreclosure inventory rate was 0.4 percent, the lowest of any month since at least January 1999.

Early-stage delinquencies – 30 to 59 days past due – rose to two percent in March, up from 1.8 percent in March 2018. The serious delinquency rate – 90 days or more past due, including foreclosures – was 1.4 percent in March, down 0.5 percent from exactly one year earlier. 

In the Inland Empire, 3.9 percent of all mortgages in March were at least 30 days delinquent, essentially unchanged from exactly one year earlier. The region’s serious delinquency and foreclosure rates were 1.0 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively, compared with 0.2 percent and 0 percent in March 2018, according to the report.