According to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) fourth quarter National Delinquency Survey (NDS), on a seasonally adjusted basis, the percentage of loans past due decreased from 6.38% in the first quarter to 5.47%.

State-level data of the past due loan category reveal that all states had reduced their count of past-due loans. The states that experienced the largest numerical declines of past due loans were not the same states that had the largest percentage declines in past due loans; in the latter category, a plurality of states belonged to the West Census Region.

Also worth noting in the NDS is the “seriously delinquent” loan category, defined as the loans that are either 90 or more days past due or in the process of foreclosure. These data are not seasonally adjusted. As the percentage of loans in the “seriously delinquent” category decreased in the second quarter to 4.03%, it also declined by count to about 1.6 million loans (seasonally adjusted), declining in its category by about 263,000 loans. The latest quarter’s drop in the “Seriously Delinquent” loan category, on numerical terms, marks the largest quarterly decline in recent history.

The above data reveal, interestingly, that the percentages of “seriously delinquent” loans decreased in the FHA and VA loan categories one quarter later than those of Conventional loans. This speaks greatly to the varied nature of loss mitigation efforts for homeowners during COVID who were in dire financial straits.

Tags: conventional loans, COVID-19, delinquencies, delinquency rate, FHA loans, foreclosures, mortgage bankers association, mortgage delinquency, national delinquency survey, VA loans