Black Knight Mortgage Monitor: Foreclosure Starts increase in January

Black Knight Financial Services (BKFS) released their Mortgage Monitor report for January today. According to BKFS, 5.56% of mortgages were delinquent in January, down from 5.64% in December. BKFS reported that 1.61% of mortgages were in the foreclosure process, down from 2.35% in January 2014.

This gives a total of 7.17% delinquent or in foreclosure. It breaks down as:

• 1,701,000 properties that are 30 or more days, and less than 90 days past due, but not in foreclosure.
• 1,112,000 properties that are 90 or more days delinquent, but not in foreclosure.
• 815,000 loans in foreclosure process.

For a total of ​​3,628,000 loans delinquent or in foreclosure in January. This is down from 4,315,000 in January 2014.

Click on graph for larger image.

From Black Knight:

The month’s data showed that both first-time and repeat foreclosure starts reached 12-month highs, although there was clear separation in the levels of increase between the two. According to Trey Barnes, Black Knight’s senior vice president of Loan Data Products, separation also continues to be seen between judicial and non-judicial foreclosure states across multiple performance indicators.

“Overall foreclosure starts hit a 12-month high in January, and that held true when looking at both first-time and repeat foreclosure starts individually,” said Barnes. “Repeat foreclosure starts made up 51 percent of all foreclosure starts and increased 11 percent from December. In contrast, first-time foreclosure starts were up just a fraction of a percent from the month prior. Similarly, Black Knight found that January foreclosure starts jumped about 10 percent from December in judicial states as compared to just a 1.7 percent increase in non-judicial states. Judicial states are also seeing higher levels of both new problem loans and serious delinquencies (loans 90 or more days delinquent, but not yet in foreclosure) than non-judicial states, although volumes are down overall in both categories.

This is still mostly clearing out the backlog.