Delinquent mortgages spike to the highest level in 21 years as COVID-19 stress freezes payments

• The share of mortgage payments that have changed from current to 30 days past due has spiked from below 1.0% at the start of 2020, to 3.4% in April, representing the highest reading in 21 years, according to CoreLogic.
• The spike comes as COVID-19 has caused millions of Americans to seek unemployment benefits and the economy enters a recession.
• The previous peak of the 30-day transition rate was 2% in November 2008, which helps illustrate just how much more widely felt the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is relative to the great financial crisis of 2008.
• As of April, 6.1% of home mortgages were in some form of delinquency, representing the highest level since January 2016.
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More homeowners are having trouble making their mortgage payments on time, according to data from CoreLogic.

As of April, the portion of mortgages that changed from on time to 30 days past due spiked to 3.4%, representing the highest reading in at least 21 years, according to CoreLogic.

The 3.4% reading is more than 50% higher than 2008's peak of 2.0%, signaling that more Americans have been negatively affected by the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic than they were by the great financial crisis.

As of April, 6.1% of home mortgages were in some stage of delinquency, with the biggest increases coming from New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Nevada.

"The share of mortgages that were 30 to 59 days past due - considered early-stage delinquencies - was 4.2% in April 2020, up from 1.7% in April 2019," CoreLogic said.

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But not all mortgage delinquency readings are hitting 10-plus year records. The serious delinquency rate, which is defined as a mortgage payment being 90 days or more past due, was 1.2% in April, which is down from its prior-year reading of 1.3%.

"For the fifth consecutive month, the serious delinquency remained at its lowest level since June 2000," Core Logic added.

Additionally, the share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process was 0.3% in April, representing the lowest foreclosure rate in at least 21 years, CoreLogic said.

So while there has been a spike in homeowners being late on their mortgage payments, it's not leading to record foreclosures, yet.

And the rise in past-due mortgage payments doesn't seem to be weakening the housing sector. Thanks to record low mortgage rates, which will likely continue lower according to Fannie Mae, home purchases and refinances have seen a surge in demand.

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