U.S. Mortgage Delinquencies Fall to Lowest Since 2007

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

by Heather Perlberg
10:00 AM EDT
May 6, 2015

The U.S. mortgage delinquency rate fell to the lowest in almost eight years as the job market strengthened and rising home values gave struggling borrowers a chance to sell.

Loans that were at least 30 days late dropped to 5.54 percent in the first quarter from 6.11 percent a year earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a report Wednesday. The share was the lowest since the second quarter of 2007.

Newer loans are benefiting from rising property prices, tighter underwriting requirements and the lowest jobless rate in seven years, while mortgages originated before the real estate bust are still moving through foreclosure. The share of loans on which foreclosure actions were started in the first quarter was 0.45 percent, the same as a year earlier, and the historical average, according to Joel Kan, vice president of surveys and forecasting for the Washington-based bankers group.

“It’s a story of continued improvement,” Kan said in a telephone interview. “We’re at such a low level of foreclosure starts, we’re going to see some increases and some decreases from here on out.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-06/u-s-mortgage-delinquencies-fall-to-lowest-since-2007

[SoapBox]

1. Damn that Obama!

BENGHAZI!

Death Panels!

Clinton's email!

No good news...NO good news! Stop it media!

[vkkv]

2. RepigLickens will deny this as well. n/t

[jtuck004]

3. Great news for bank$ters and rentiers, not shit for working people who still have no money to speak

of.

Just a note: Many of those who are buying are purchasing overpriced crap shacks with 3% down loans, loans that helped bring us the financial crisis we are still living because of the certainty that a large number of them will be foreclosed on. It is a known, statistically supportable fact.

...
In addition, the homeownership rate in the first quarter of 2015 fell to 63.7 percent, the lowest since 1990, according to the U.S. Census.

Meanwhile non owner-occupant buyers -- any buyer who purchased a property but has their property tax bill mailed somewhere else -- reached a new high of 36.8 percent in the first quarter of 2015, the highest level since the first quarter of 2011. In the universe of non-owner-occupied purchases, 44.7 percent were to all cash buyers, down from 61.0 percent a year ago to the lowest quarterly level since the first quarter of 2011.

A total of 14,621 single family homes were sold to institutional investors -- entities that purchase at least 10 properties in a calendar year -- in the first quarter of 2015, 3.4 percent of all sales and down from 6.2 percent a year ago, the lowest share in four years.

"The first quarter sales data broken down by owner-occupancy status suggest two important trends in the housing market: first, investor activity continues to represent a disproportionately high share of all home sales activity in this housing recovery, but unlike the past three years the large institutional investors are backing out while the smaller, mid-tier and mom-and-pop investors are remaining active," said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. "The second trend is that a growing number of investors are not buying all-cash, but instead are taking advantage of the broader set of financing options now available to them thanks to a new crop of nationwide companies that have emerged offering financing specifically for investment properties." - See more at: http://www.worldpropertyjournal.com/real-estate-news/united-states/home-ownership-data-2015-q1-2015-cash-investor-distressed-sales-report-realtytrac-owner-occupied-homes-data-daren-blomquist-real-estate-investor-data-9055.php#sthash.QTgMwyso.dpuf
...

The more rental housing we have, the less people will participate in our democracy, which is great for conservatives.