Seriously Delinquent Mortgages Continue To Decline

In March, 3.63 percent of mortgages in the U.S. were seriously delinquent,¹ according to the latest issue of Housing Market Conditions, produced by the St. Louis Fed. The figure below shows the percentage of seriously delinquent mortgages by county.

The chart below is from the inaugural issue of Housing Market Conditions, published for the first quarter of 2012. It shows seriously delinquent mortgages by county in March 2012, when 7.3 percent of loans in the U.S. were seriously delinquent.

During the first quarter of 2015, the share of seriously delinquent loans decreased 36 basis points (bps). Loans delinquent 90 days or more decreased 31 bps, while foreclosures decreased 5 bps.

House prices rose during the first quarter. The figure below shows changes in U.S. house prices since 2000 according to two indexes:

• Federal Housing Finance Agency Seasonally Adjusted Expanded HPI (FHFA)
• CoreLogic Seasonally Adjusted HPI (CoreLogic)

House prices were 1.4 percent higher according to FHFA and 1.8 percent higher according to CoreLogic when compared with the fourth quarter of 2014.

Notes and References

¹ Seriously delinquent mortgages are delinquent 90 days or more or are in foreclosure.

Additional Resources

• Housing Market Conditions
• On the Economy: The Differences between House Price Indexes
• On the Economy: Mortgage Debt and the Great Recession