According to a report by Black Knight, Inc., national foreclosure rates have started to increase, but they are still 80 percent below pre-pandemic levels.
The lifting of the federal foreclosure moratorium at the end of the July caused the increase in foreclosure activity in the following month, with 7,100 foreclosure starts representing the largest volume in eight months. This increase was primarily influenced by the number of restarts on the processing of loans that had been in foreclosure prior to the moratorium.
The report also showed the delinquency rate on first lien mortgages fell in August to 4 percent, the lowest it has been since early 2020, when mortgage delinquencies spiked because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moreover, serious delinquencies (defined as mortgages with payments that are 90 days or more past due, including those in active forbearance) fell by 108,000 since July, and is now down more than one million since August 2020. There are still roughly 930,000 more serious delinquencies than there were prior to the pandemic.