A new report from Black Knight, the software company for the real estate and mortgage lending and servicing industries, reported a “first look” at statistics for mortgage yield at the end of March 2022derived from its loan-level database that represents the majority of the national mortgage market.
According to the company, the national delinquency rate fell by more than half a percentage point in Marchfalling to 2.84% and surpassing the previous record low of 3.22% in January 2020.
While March typically sees the strongest mortgage performance of any month, with delinquencies falling more than 10% on average over the last 20 years, this year’s 15.5% reduction was “exceptionally strong.”
The results, says Black Knight, obey the strong employment, continued student loan deferrals, strong post-forbearance performance, and millions of refinances at historically low interest rates have helped push down delinquency rates.
The report indicates that the strongest improvement was seen among borrowers with only one payment duewith delinquencies of 30 days that registered a decrease of 20% month after month.
It is also noted that although serious delinquencies (those 90 or more days past due but not in foreclosure) fell 12% for the strongest single-month improvement in 20 yearsare still 70% above pre-pandemic levels.
According to Black Knight, despite high serious delinquencies, foreclosure starts fell 3% from the previous month and remain well below pre-pandemic levels.
Regarding the number of active foreclosures, these increased slightly in March, marking the first year-over-year increase in almost 10 years, although inventories also remained well below pre-pandemic levels.
On prepaid activity, Black Knight found that it bucked the recent trend of sharp interest rate increases that drove prepaid speeds down, rising 9% in March, likely driven, at least in part, by due to seasonal increases in prepayments related to home sales.
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