The U.S. mortgage delinquency rate stayed in the vicinity of its record low depth during February, according to new data from CoreLogic.
In February, 3% of all mortgages in were in some stage of delinquency, a 0.4% dip from one year earlier but a 0.2% uptick from the previous month. No state posted an annual increase in overall delinquency rates in February, and the largest declines were recorded in New York and West Virginia (both down by 0.9 percentage points).
Among the major metro areas, 18 markets posted an increase in overall delinquency rates, with the greatest upward movement in Florida’s Cape Coral-Fort Myers and Punta Gorda (both up by 1.7 percentage points). All but four U.S. metro areas posted at least a small annual decrease in serious delinquency rates – the quartet that bucked the trend were Cape Coral-Fort Myers and Punta Gorda (both up by 1.3 percentage points) plus Florida’s North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton metro and Bloomsburg-Berwick in Pennsylvania (both up by 0.1 percentage point).
“Despite a small monthly increase in the share of mortgage payments that were one month late in February, early-stage delinquencies remained unchanged year over year,” said Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic. “February’s early-stage delinquency rate was historically low and primarily driven by a strong job market. However, the possibility of a recession that would raise the U.S. unemployment rate could slightly erode the current strong mortgage performance situation in the coming months.”
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