By Dees Stribling | MHN Online
Lender Processing Services released its latest Mortgage Monitor on Monday, which found that the national delinquency rate for residential mortgages continued to fall in May, marking the largest year-to-date drop since 2002. In fact, delinquencies are down more than 15 percent since the end of December 2012, coming in at 6.08 percent for May 2013.
Delinquencies are still historically high, at about 1.4 times what they were (on average) during the decade from 1995 to 2005, according to LPS applied analytics senior vice president Herb Blecher. But the rate has been dropping since it peaked in early 2010, mainly because fewer problem loans are coming into the system, while existing inventories are working their way through. New problem loan rates are now at just 0.73 percent, which is roughly on par with the annual averages during 2005 and 2006, and very close to the 0.55 percent average during 2000 to 2004.
