90-day Delinquencies Increasingly Ended in Foreclosure Last Month

Black Knight Financial Services has released a "first look" at its month-end January mortgage performance statistics.  The company regularly previews data that is covered in a more comprehensive form in its Mortgage Monitor scheduled for publication on March 9.

The number of properties for which mortgages are 30 days past due but not yet in foreclosure declined by 50,000 in January to 2.81 million.  The 30-day delinquency rate was down 11 percent from a year earlier to 5.56 percent of all homes in the U.S. with a mortgage.  Serious delinquencies, i.e. properties that are 90 or more days past due but not in foreclosure, declined by 20,000 from December and 177,000 from a year earlier to 1.11 million

There were 94,300 foreclosure starts during the month.  This is 5.5 percent more than in December and an increase of 0.21 percent from January 2014.

The foreclosure inventory, properties in some state of foreclosure, continues to decline and is down 360,000 units or 31 percent year-over-year.  The inventory totaled 815,000 properties in January compared to 820,000 in December and represented 1.61 percent of all mortgaged properties in the country

Foreclosure sales calculated as a percentage of 90+ day delinquencies rose almost 19 percent month-over-month to 1.86 percent but this was still 13 percent below the rate in January 2014.

Distressed mortgages, including delinquencies and properties in foreclosure, numbered 3.63 million in January, down 60,000 from December and 687,000 from a year earlier.

Black Knight also noted that the prepayment rate (SMM) for mortgages, generally closely tied to the rate of refinancing, was down 23 percent from December to 0.88 percent.  The SMM was, however, 19 percent higher than in January 2014.