The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has launched a new Mortgage Performance Trends tool that tracks nationwide delinquency rates, and also can break down delinquency information on a state-by-state basis.
The tool has indicated that mortgage delinquency rates are at their lowest point since the financial crisis, the CFPB said in a press release, based on information from the National Mortgage Database, which the CFPB and the Federal Housing Finance Agency launched in 2012.
The online tool also features interactive charts and graphs, displaying data on mortgage delinquency rates for 50 states and the District of Columbia at the county and metro-area level.
“Measuring the number of consumers who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments is a telling barometer of the health of mortgage markets locally and nationally,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in the release. “This rich information source identifies mortgage delinquency rates down to the county and metro-area level, making it a useful public tool.”
The tool measures the delinquency rates in two general categories:
- The first comprised of borrowers 30 to 89 days behind on their mortgage payments; and
- The second comprised of seriously delinquent borrowers more than 90 days behind on their mortgage payments.
By tracking the rate of borrowers who are delinquent or seriously delinquent, the tool can provide insight regarding trends in the mortgage market that could impact the overall economy, according to the CFPB.
The tool’s interactive components track monthly changes in both categories of delinquency rates starting in 2008, when the financial crisis was unfolding, as well as the years leading up to the crisis.
Among the takeaways from the mortgage delinquency data reflected in the tool are the following:
- Serious delinquencies are at the lowest rate they’ve been since the financial crisis, with the national rate sitting at 1.1 percent as of March 2017, down from 4.9 percent in 2010.
- When broken down by state, the data shows that Colorado and Alaska have the lowest rate of serious delinquencies, 0.5 percent, while New Jersey and Mississippi have the highest delinquency rates, 2.1 percent. Mississippi also has the highest rate of mortgages delinquent by fewer than 90 days, 4.3 percent, while the state of Washington has the lowest rate of such delinquencies, 1 percent.
- Nevada, which was hit particularly hard by the housing crisis peaked, saw its serious delinquency rate peak at 10.7 percent. That rate has dropped to 1.2 percent, nearly the same as the national average. Florida, which saw its serious delinquency rate peak at 9 percent, now has a rate of 1.4 percent, and California and Arizona, which saw rates of serious delinquencies rise to 7.5 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively, during the crisis since have seen them drop to less than 1 percent.
To protect personal borrowers’ personal identities, all records are stripped of personal identifying information, such as names, addresses and Social Security numbers, before the CFPB or the FHFA receive National Mortgage Database data, according to the bureau.