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Monday, February 5
Black Knight’s Mortgage Monitor
- Though mortgage delinquencies ended 2017 at a 23-month high (up 164K from 2016 year-end), in non-hurricane-impacted areas – representing 90 percent of the total market – delinquency rates declined
- The national delinquency rate in non-hurricane-affected areas was 11 percent below long-term norms
- The total number of mortgages either past due or in foreclosure fell by more than 140K in non-hurricane-affected areas, pushing the non-current rate in these areas down to 10 percent below long-term norms
- A total of 649K foreclosure starts were initiated in 2017, the fewest of any year since 2000
- 2017 saw the fewest first-time foreclosure starts on record, which were both 15 percent below 2016 levels and roughly half their pre-crisis annual average
- While foreclosure inventory is on track to normalize in 2018, more than 125K active foreclosures remain in which no payment has been made in more than two years; 63K have not had a payment in five years or more
- The 232K total foreclosure sales (completions) in 2017 marked the lowest single-year total since the turn of the century
December First Look release
Hurricane impact update
“Hurricanes Harvey and Irma significantly impacted 2017 mortgage performance metrics,” said Black Knight Data & Analytics Executive Vice President Ben Graboske. “Overall, there were approximately 164,000 more past-due loans at the end of 2017 than the year before, pushing the national delinquency rate to a 23-month high.
“When Black Knight isolated non-hurricane-impacted areas – which represent 90 percent of the entire active U.S. mortgage universe – we see the national delinquency rate actually fell to 11 percent below long-term norms. Likewise, the 90-day delinquency rate was also up six percent from last year, with roughly a third more seriously delinquent loans than we’d expect in a healthy market.
“Excluding the hurricane impact, though, we see that there were 84,000 fewer loans 90 or more days past due than last year; a 14 percent reduction. The national non-current rate – which tracks all loans 30 or more days past due or in active foreclosure – edged down slightly from 2016, even including the effects of the storms.
“Isolating those non-hurricane areas, though, we see that the total number of past-due mortgages fell by more than 140,000 – which brought the non-current rate in these areas down 10 percent below long-term norms.”
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