Serious Mortgage Delinquencies Soar To a 10-Year High, reports Credit & Collection e-newsletter on 8/24/20
Good News and Bad News – The Black Knight Mortgage Monitor for July has a bit of good news and bad. The Good News: Mortgage delinquencies continued to improve in July, falling 9% from June, with more than 340K fewer past due mortgages than the month prior. Early-stage delinquencies (30 days past due) have fallen below their pre-pandemic norms. This is a good sign that – at least for the time being – the inflow of new COVID-19-related delinquencies has subsided. Though foreclosure starts ticked up slightly for the month, COVID-19 foreclosure moratoriums are keeping both foreclosure starts and completions at record lows. Driven by record-low mortgage interest rates, prepayment activity edged slightly higher in July, hitting its highest point since early 2004. The Bad News – Some 376K homeowners became 90 or more days past due in July. Serious delinquencies were up 20% from June and are now the highest they’ve been since early 2010. In total, serious delinquencies are now 1.8M over pre-pandemic levels.