Delinquencies decline – good sign for real estate industry

Good real estate news

Despite the struggling economy, mortgage delinquencies declining again, the news of which is most beneficial to the real estate sector. For the second month in a row, delinquencies fell in March, according to LPS Applied Analytics.

The number of mortgage loans that were at least 30 days past due or in foreclosure declined 8.6% in March, and the biggest slide came in loans that were 30 days past due. Such loans fell by a record 342,000 to roughly 1.45 million, a level not seen since spring 2008, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Although REOs are on the rise, the total number of loans that are delinquent or in foreclosure has fallen by more than 647,000 since January, according to LPS.

“We’re not out of the woods, but this appears to be a turning point,” said LPS Applied Analytics President Ted Jadlos. “This is the first time we’ve seen improvement across all stages of mortgage delinquency.”

People losing their homes

More than 320,000 loans that started the year current were at least 60 days past due at the end of March, and over 3.6 million homes will be lost from 2010 to 2012 because borrowers can’t make their loan payments, Economy.com estimates.

The top cause for mortgage delinquencies are loss of income at 59.1%, then excessive obligations 10.5% and illness 2.8%, not to mention the fact that 44.1% of the 6.5 million unemployed Americans have been out of work for longer than six months, according to Mortgage News Daily.

For mortgages that are behind, it is mostly linked to unemployment or underemployment, but with banks attempting to work with homeowners and more agents specializing in helping distressed homeowners, delinquency rates are projected to continue to perform better.

CC Licensed image courtesy of revdancatt via Flickr.com.