The quarterly National Delinquency Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association shows a decline in the serious delinquency rate across all the categories of loans, continuing the downward trend that has persisted since the middle of the Great Recession. These categories of loans are Conventional loans, VA loans, and FHA-insured loans, for which the serious delinquency rates as of March 2019 are 1.7%, 1.9%, and 3.5%, respectively. The home types covered by the NDS are 1- to 4-unit residential properties; therefore, the survey is not a comprehensive coverage of all of multifamily real estate.

While the continuing decline of the serious delinquency rates across all loan categories is welcome news, the monthly FHA Single-Family Loan Performance Foreclosure Statistics Trends tells a more nuanced story. Per the latest data, the six-month moving average in foreclosure starts as of March 2019 is the highest it has been since June 2017, totaling 10,344. Additionally, the data show that the number of conventional loans have always far exceeded the number of FHA or VA loans serviced: on a seasonally adjusted basis, as of March 2019, the number of conventional loans serviced totaled 29.7 million, with FHA and VA loans serviced at 6.4 million and 2.3 million, respectively.

Tags: conventional loans, FHA loans, mortgage bankers association, national delinquency survey, VA loans