Mortgage Defaults: Latest Woe for Housing

The main point of this article is the increasing evidence of problems due to loose underwriting for mortgages of the last few years. Mortgage defaults: Latest woe for housing:

The rate of subprime borrowers who are more than a month late on a mortgage payment was 13.2 percent in the third quarter of 2006, the latest numbers available, up from a 10.5 percent delinquency rate in the third quarter of 2005.

The overall mortgage delinquency rate was 4.7 percent in the third quarter, just slightly above the 4.4 percent rate of a year earlier, when it was a historic low.

The problem of loose credit is real and important. But isn’t it really amazing how 4.4% is the historic low for mortgages over a month late? That seems really high too me. Obviously 13.2% for sub-prime loans shows how risky it is to take out such a loan. In my opinion, the delinquency rate for over 90 days late is a more important figure (but these numbers can serve as a leading indicator).

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Comments

4 responses to “Mortgage Defaults: Latest Woe for Housing”

  1. The central premise of this post is that risk is being mispriced by the market (by failing to account for the risks bonds… are overpriced)…

  2. Sorry but that is a symptom of massive ignorance. Not knowing an incredible important aspect of your largest financial decision is like not know what days you are suppose to show up for work…

  3. […] + 6.99% (delinquent) = 9.96%. That is amazingly bad. In February of 2007 I wrote about this and the delinquency rate was 4.7% which sounded pretty bad to me. Amazingly 4.4% is a historic low for this figure. Can you believe […]

  4. […] is crazy. These kinds of figures are astounding to me. I am still (posted Feb 2007) amazed that 4.4% is the historic low for mortgages over a month late. About 1.92 percent of homeowners with 2008 mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fell at […]

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