Tag Archives: defaults

Declining Delinquency

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac report that the rate at which single family mortgages that are three months in arrears or in foreclosure declined to 2.77% and 2.79% respectively in June, down from all-time highs of 5.59% and 4.20% respectively in February 2010. While the rates are down 50% and 33% respectively, at this pace it will, unfortunately, take until 2017 before the rate returns to normal, or about 0.8%.

Underwater Houses

Banks currently own 450,000 houses, 2 million are in foreclosure, and 1.7 million more have not had a mortgage payment made on them in 90 days. This adds up to 4.15 million houses. The problem is that the economy has lost 5.2 million jobs since the start of the recession in January ’08. Absent those job losses, the foreclosure problem vanishes. That’s why robust job growth is so critical.