CHICAGO – Mortgage delinquencies rose in the second quarter to a seasonally adjusted rate of 7.58 percent of all mortgages, up from 7.4 percent in the first quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Thursday.

Delinquencies are still down from a year ago, when a seasonally adjusted 8.44 percent of mortgages were delinquent, according to the report. Delinquencies include mortgages that are at least one payment past due but have not yet entered the foreclosure process.

“Delinquencies were up only slightly over the last quarter,” Jay Brinkmann, MBA’s chief economist, said in a news release. “Perhaps more important than the small size of the increase, however, is the fact that it reversed the trend of fairly steady drops in delinquencies we have seen over the last year. This is consistent with the slowdown in the economy during the first half of the year and our stubbornly high unemployment rate.”

Delinquencies rose beyond seasonal expectations. “We will have to see where the rest of the economy goes, because it will pull housing along with it,” Brinkmann said in an interview.

The combined percentage of mortgages either in foreclosure or with at least one payment past due was a non-seasonally adjusted 11.62 percent, up from 11.33 percent in the first quarter and down from 12.54 percent a year ago

The MBA survey covers 42.5 million loans on one- to four-unit residential properties, or about 88 percent of all first-lien residential mortgages outstanding in the U.S.

 


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