Black Knight February Mortgage Monitor: Foreclosure Rate still "175 percent above pre-crisis norms"

Black Knight Financial Services (BKFS) released their Mortgage Monitor report for February today. According to BKFS, 5.36% of mortgages were delinquent in February, down from 5.56% in January. BKFS reported that 1.58% of mortgages were in the foreclosure process, down from 2.22% in February 2014.

This gives a total of 6.94% delinquent or in foreclosure. It breaks down as:

• 1,646,000 properties that are 30 or more days, and less than 90 days past due, but not in foreclosure.
• 1,067,000 properties that are 90 or more days delinquent, but not in foreclosure.
• 800,000 loans in foreclosure process.

For a total of ​​3,512,000 loans delinquent or in foreclosure in February. This is down from 4,106,000 in February 2014.

Click on graph for larger image.

From Black Knight:

Delinquency and foreclosure inventories continue to trend towards pre-crisis norms

February’s delinquency rate, while still 17 percent above the pre-crisis norm of 4.6 percent, was down 49 percent from its January 2010 peak of 10.6 percent

At 1.58 percent, the foreclosure rate remained 175 percent above precrisis norms, but was still down 63 percent from its October 2011 peak

Also from Black Knight:

Today, the Data and Analytics division of Black Knight Financial Services released its latest Mortgage Monitor Report, based on data as of the end of February 2015. Black Knight revisited its periodic review of potential refinance candidates, looking at broad-based eligibility criteria, and found that in light of recent mortgage interest rate decreases, the population of potential refinance candidates currently sits at 7.1 million. However, according to Trey Barnes, Black Knight’s senior vice president of Loan Data Products, this number has the potential to decline should rates climb, even marginally.

“Black Knight looked at the population of borrowers whose current interest rates – as well as credit scores and loan-to-value ratios – mark them as good candidates for refinancing,” said Barnes. “In February 2014, there were approximately 4.1 million borrowers who could both benefit from and potentially qualify for refinancing their mortgages. Through a combination of declining interest rates and increased equity among borrowers driven by home price increases, an additional three million borrowers now meet the same broad-based eligibility criteria as compared to one year prior. As of the end of February 2015, there were a total of 7.1 million potential refinance candidates.

There is much more in the mortgage monitor.