Foreclosure Rate Nearing Pre-Crisis Level

• Early-stage delinquencies hovering around 17-year lows
• The current-to 30-day transition rate edged down in May 2017 from a year earlier

• New York had the highest delinquency rate of the largest metro areas

In May 2017, 4.5 percent of home mortgages were in some stage of delinquency, down from 5.3 percent a year earlier and the lowest for any May since 2006, when it was 4.2 percent, according to the latest CoreLogic Loan Performance Insights Report. The measure includes all home loans 30 days or more past due, including those in foreclosure. For the month of May, the share of delinquent mortgages was highest – 11.5 percent – in May 2010.

The foreclosure inventory rate, meaning the share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process, was 0.7 percent, down from 1 percent a year earlier. Before the foreclosure crisis began in mid-2007, the foreclosure inventory rate averaged 0.6 percent.

The share of mortgages that were 30 to 59 days past due – considered “early-stage” delinquencies – was 1.9 percent in May 2017, down from 2 percent in May 2016. The share of mortgages 60 to 89 days past due was 0.6 percent in May 2017, down slightly from the May 2016 rate of 0.7 percent.

In addition to delinquency rates, CoreLogic tracks the rate at which mortgages transition from one stage of delinquency to the next, such as going from being current to 30 days past due. Figure 1 shows that the current- to 30-day transition rate remained low in May. The May 2017 current- to 30-day rate was 0.8 percent, down from 0.9 percent in May 2016. The 30- to 60-day transition rate was 13.8 percent in May 2017, down from 16.3 percent in May 2016, while the 60- to 90-day transition rate was 24.9 percent this May, down from 27.6 percent a year earlier.

Figure 2 shows the states with the highest and lowest rate of mortgages in some stage of delinquency. In May 2017 that rate was highest in Mississippi – 8.2 percent — and North Dakota had the lowest rate at 2 percent. Figure 3 shows the 30-days-or-more past-due rate for the 10 largest metro areas[1]. That rate was highest – 6.8 percent – in the New York metro area and lowest – 1.8 percent – in San Francisco.

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