Mortgage Delinquency Improvement Across the Board in January, Uptick in Foreclosure Starts
- January performance data showed a slight decrease (-10 basis points) in the national delinquency rate month-over-month, which is now down 15.1% year over year
- Foreclosure starts saw a fourth straight increase, but remain 37% below pre-pandemic levels; active foreclosures are up 20% since January 2022, but they too remain nearly 20% below pre-pandemic levels
- As purchase and refinance lending continue to face interest rate headwinds, prepayment activity hit yet another record low in January, dating back to at least 2000 when Black Knight began reporting the metric
Black Knight, Inc. reports the following “first look” at January 2023 month-end mortgage performance statistics derived from its newly enhanced and greatly expanded McDash loan-level data set representing more than 60% of active mortgages nationwide. Loan-level detail on more than 200M active and historical mortgages has already made McDash the industry’s leading repository of servicer-contributed performance data. The vast population of active mortgages in the data set, now coupled with Black Knight’s eMBS agency securities data, also allow for more precise market sizing to better reflect the evolving mortgage landscape of the past several years – and of that to come.
“McDash was already the mortgage and capital markets sectors’ go-to source for loan-level performance metrics on the majority of the market, contributed directly by the nation’s largest servicers,” said Ben Graboske, president of Black Knight Data & Analytics. “Mortgage data in McDash comes from a wide range of servicers, including both Black Knight MSP servicing clients as well as those using other servicing systems of record. Now at over 80 active contributors and counting, we’ve also significantly increased our coverage of nonbank servicers as well as those with smaller portfolios. Prior to this, visibility into these portfolios – representing millions of loans and a dynamic cross-section of the market – simply hasn’t been available at this level of granularity in public performance metrics.”
Delinquencies were down across the board in January, with the overall national delinquency rate declining 10 basis points to 3.38% month over month, down 15.1% year over year. The number of borrowers 30-days late decreased by 46K (-4.8%), while 60-day delinquencies also ticked down slightly. Serious delinquencies (90+ days past due) continued to improve nationally (-4K), with such inventories declining in a large majority (44) of states. Florida – still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Ian – saw another 1.7K loans fall into serious delinquency.
Foreclosure starts rose 17% in the month to 33K, marking the fourth consecutive increase, but remain 37% below pre-pandemic levels. Foreclosure was started on 5.6% of serious delinquencies in January, still 48% below the start rate seen in January 2020. Active foreclosure inventory rose by 2.5% in the month, and is now up 48K or 20% since January 2022, but remains nearly 20% below pre-pandemic levels. A total of 7K foreclosures were completed nationally in January, up 15.2% from the month prior, but remain nearly 50% below early 2020 levels.
Graboske added: “Given the fundamental changes we’ve seen in the market’s makeup – even before the pandemic – and as the industry and wider economy move ahead into an uncertain future, this additional visibility couldn’t come at a more important time. Our role as a public provider of objective and unvarnished housing and mortgage market data and analysis is something we take very seriously. We’ve been through enough boom-and-bust cycles in the mortgage industry to understand just how critical this role is – to our industry, as well to the public, the media and the wider American economy.”
For this month’s full First Look press release, including tables and trendlines, please visit us here.
The company will provide a more in-depth review of this data in its monthly Mortgage Monitor report, which includes an analysis of data supplemented by detailed charts and graphs that reflect trend and point-in-time observations. The Mortgage Monitor report will be available online at https://www.blackknightinc.com/data-reports/ by March 6, 2023.
For more information about gaining access to Black Knight’s loan-level database, please send an email to Mortgage.Monitor@bkfs.com.
