Mortgage Statistics

Freddie Mac Foreclosure Data by Year of Origination

2011-11-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

Freddie Mac Default statistics show that the rate of mortgages in default or foreclosure have measurably improved in 2010 and 2011. The worse years for mortgage companies were 2006, 2007 and 2008 just before the big real estate melt down. For example, for conforming loans that were originated in 2007, now there are almost 7% of those that have been foreclosed or sold-short. That's a horrible number.... Almost 7 times worse than what was experienced during 2000 and 2001 (of course back then the prices of homes weren't as high... So it's easier for home buyers who bought in 2000 to sell their house and have enough to pay off their mortgage; whereas, many more people who bought in 2007 are underwater in their mortgage. So they be choosing to strategically walk away or look for a short-sale that the bank agrees to.

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2011-10-19T16:21:00.000-07:00

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Mortgage Rates Drop to below 4%

2011-10-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

As the Wall Street Journal reports, Mortgage Rates have officially fallen below 4%. I must admit that I never thought that the mortgage rates would fall this low and have been somewhat surprised. Crossing this level marks the lowest home loan rates ever (In the early 1900's people typically get 30 year loans---Not until the government started stepping into the system and working on securitizing the mortgages did the durations start climbing---And for the last 30 years the APY's have started falling.

In my opinion, these low rates have helped to keep home prices from falling further. I still think that if rates start climbing up to 5% or 6% housing prices could come down further. So my advice is that if you currently own your home and have enough equity to refinance, you should consider refinancing.

Will the Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction Go Away?

2011-03-03T18:10:00.000-08:00

Recently there have been some news stories about politicians who may be considering the abandonment of the mortgage interest deduction. This tax deduction has been around for decades and allows homeowners to itemize their mortgage interest on their primary residence, second house and even home equity loans from their income.

It's clearly a benefit for current home owners who are levered up, and for realtors--because this deduction helps to make homes more affordable, and hence results in higher selling prices on real estate. However, with governments spending much more money than they're currently bringing in I figure that political leaders will consider either doing away with mortgage interest deductions, or else setting up some rules that limit the perk---These limits could include income limits, or rule out the tax savings from mortgage interest on second homes or equity lines of credit.

One important question that home sellers and buyers should be asking themselves is--"Can this happen?" I think it can. The next important question will be, "What does that mean for future home prices?" Clearly, if you take away what is effectively a subsidy on buying home -- all else equal -- the future transaction prices will have to fall. This is one of many reasons why I think it might still pay to be a renter for a few more years and enjoy the flexibility and optionality that renting provides.

Wells Fargo's Mortgage Delinquency Rates and Foreclosures are Better than Average and Better than Bank of America

2011-03-02T18:44:00.000-08:00

Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO John Stumpf recently presented at the Morgan Stanley investors conference. One of the more interesting charts he talked about was on slide #21 in which he shows the Deliquency rate and foreclosure rate of his bank versus his peers during the third quarter of 2010. Specifically:

Wells Fargo - 6.1% Delinquent + 2.1% in foreclosure
Citibank - 6.9% Delinquent and 2.6% of mortgages in foreclosure.
JP Morgan Chase came in at 7.8% and 3.7% respectively
Bank of America was the laggard of the bunch (Thanks to their countrywide acquisition) with a whopping 3.7% of loans in foreclosure and 10.6% seriously deliquent..
You can click on the chart above for larger view of the data that Mr. Stumpf presented.

The CEO also showed a comparison during fiscal year 2010 for the charge-offs as a percentage of all loans for Wells Fargo and its peers. Citi took the most in charge-offs on debt (4.6%), followed by Bank of America (3.6%), JPM (3.4%), Wells (2.3%) and US Bank had the best performance with just 2.2% charged off.

Interestingly enough over the last 10 years, Citi was the worst and US Bank was the best.

Unemployment Rate versus Mortgage Delinquency Rate

2011-03-01T19:44:00.000-08:00

The chart can be expanded by clicking on it. But one interesting thing to look at is comparing the delinquency rate on all Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Mortgages (The bar charts -- which use the left axis) versus the unemployment rate during the last 5 years. It's not surprising that as people lose their jobs and/or become under-employed they have less ability to stay current on their monthly mortgage payments.

consequently, the seriously delinquency rate experienced by America's largest mortgage companies really spikes up. You can see that Fannie has experienced far more mortgages going bad than Freddie has---but neither one did good in 2010. Fortunately, things seemed to have plateaued for now---However, as the chart shows---if people start getting laid off again, I think another step up in charge-offs and non-performing loans could pester these GSA's.

(Unfortunately, it had been months since I pulled the unemployment data, and I couldn't readily find the monthly U-6 data for much of 2009 and 2010---If you happen to have it handy, feel free to leave it in the comments and hopefully I'll be able to update the chart in a future month).

Fannie Mae - Delinquent Mortgage Chart and Data - Things improved in 2010.

2011-03-01T19:24:00.001-08:00

Click on Chart for a larger image.

Fannie Mae publishes seriously delinquent data each and every month for mortgages that it owns. The good news is that the delinquency rate has started to come down during 2010; the bad news is that it is still elevated versus historic norms.

Fannie Mae saw it's highest delinquency rates during February 2010, when 3.9% of single-family homes (non-credit enhanced / i.e. conforming mortgages) were seriously behind their monthly payment. Things were even worse for Fannie's credit enhanced notes (i.e. lower down-payment levels and likely paying mortgage insurance)---A whopping 13.8% of credit enhanced mortgages were deliquent in February, 2010.

Since that time, things improved to 3.4% andd 10.6% by the end of 2010.

Although things have improved, Fannie is still in a little worse shape than Freddie (That will be the topic of another post).

Mortgage Charge Off-Rates Have Declined Significantly

2011-03-01T18:29:00.000-08:00

The Federal Reserve puts out data concerning charge off rates for all commercial banks in the United States. During 2010, the charge-off rates have been declining. You can expand the chart above by clicking on it, but you can see that the charge-off rate for commercial real estate (excluding farmland) has fallen to around 2%, as has that for residential mortgages---The drop off in credit card charge offs has been even steeper dropping from a peak of nearly 11% in Q2-2010 to 7.7% in Q4-2010.

Banks first must place non-performing mortgages in the delinquent portion of their books for several months before fully charging them off.

Percent of homes underwater on their mortgages

2010-12-13T17:12:00.000-08:00

Click on image for a bigger graph.

Calculated Riskhas published this nice little chart that shows which states have the greatest amounts of homeowners that have underwater mortgages.

Homes with negative equity are "underwater"; essentially it means the loan balance is greater than what the home is work. This is a problem, because it raises the risk of foreclosure and strategic walk-aways.

States such as Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California and Michigan have large amounts of homes that are underwater. Some states in the middle of the country--such as Oklahoma and North Dakota have the largest percentage of homes with positive owners' equity.

Jobless Rate Doubles; Fannie & Freddie Delinquencies Septuple

2009-11-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

Click on Chart for a Bigger Image

Here is an update of a set of data that I've been paying attention to for the last year. It compares the unemployment rate (Blue Line), the U6 Broader Unemployment Rate (Purple Line, which includes the jobless, and the people working part-time for economic reasons) with the delinquency rate on Fannie Mae (Red Bar) and Freddie Mac (Green Bar) mortgage loans on single family homes.

The picture isn't pleasing---You can see that as broad unemployment rate increased from less than 10% to 17.5% (in October, 2009)---The delinquency rate on home loans for Fannie & Freddie (which are typically Prime Loans) have increased by almost 6 - 8 Fold!

Let me repeat that---In Late 2006 and Early 2007, the prime mortgages were delinquent at merely ~0.5%. Now Freddie Mac has a 3.33% Delinquency Rate (September, 2009) and Fannie has a Delinquency Rate of 4.45%.

People should remember that in 2007, the economy & markets started tanking because sub-prime mortgages started going delinquent... Granted, those loans were going bust a significantly higher rate than the Freddie & Fannie notes---but also remember that Freddie & Fannie loan out significantly more money than what was ever given out to sub-prime borrowers... I don't have the data, but I'd venture to say that in order-of-magnitude--these loan delinquencies could be as bad or worse than the sub-prime crises.

Foreclosures to set a Record in 2009

2009-08-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

According to a story on the Washington Post, the rate of home foreclosures in 2009 is expected to crest over 1.8 million (vs. 1.4 million in 2008). The main cause for the sharp uptick in foreclosure filings is not the continuation of the sub-prime crisis---but actually the sharp increase in unemployment rates.

As more and more borrowers are significantly underwater on their homes and have living pay-check to paycheck a prolonged bout of unemployment can really drive them to stop paying the bank and walk away from their home.

1H-2009 saw 1.5 million homes start the foreclosure process

2009-07-16T06:04:00.001-07:00

According to CNN, during the first half of 2009 1.5 million homes began the trek down the foreclosure process---representing 1 in every 89 households.

CNN which used data provided by realtyTrac broke down the data to show the 10 states where the most mortgage foreclosure activity is taking place. Here's the data:

Nevada 1 in every 16 houses in foreclosure
Arizona 1 in every 30
Florida 1 in every 33
California 1 in 34 houses
Utah 1 in 69
Georgia 1 in 70
Michigan 1 in 74
Illinois 1 in 76
Idaho 1 in 79
Colorado 1 in 80
Ohio 1 in every 86

The case for "Do-Nothing"

2009-07-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

Jeffrey Miron a senior lecturer at Harvard University's Economics Department puts forth the case of "doing nothing" in the bank bail-outs and tactfully shows how the bailouts to date are an enefficient redistribution of capital that penalizes the prudent and encourages excessive risk taking.

Freddie Mac Delinquency Rates Continue to Climb--1 in 38 Freddie Mortgages Seriously Delinquent

2009-06-27T07:03:00.000-07:00

Click on Chart for a Larger/Clearer Image

Freddie Mac recently published the data for its seriously delinquent mortgages through May-2009. And the results continue to worsen.

2.01% of "Non-Credit Enhanced Mortgages" are seriously delinquent--These are mortgages that would have had at least a 20% down payment.

And 5.45% of Credit enchanced Freddi Mac Mortgage loans are delinquent---Think of these as folks who couldn't pony up the 20% down payment and may be using PMI (private mortgage insurance) to get the safety that Freddie wants.

Overall (combining the above 2 catagories) 2.62% of F-Mac's mortgages are seriously behind in their payments... And to make matters worse for all those "green-shooters" out there, the second derivative of delinquencies increased in May. (That essentially means that the rate of increase in delinquencies in May has increased vs. what it was in April).

Commercial Mortgage Delinquencies Quickly Climbing

2009-05-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

Click on Image for a Larger View.

Crains Chicago today showed a chart that shows just how bad the Great Recession is impacting the rate of commercial mortgage delinquencies. At the end of Q1-2009, 3.6% of American Commercial mortgages were delinquent and 5.6% of Chicago area loans were behind in their payments---Both are almost 4 times worse than what was typical during 2006.

Of the Top-100 US Metro Areas, Foresight Analytics says that these 10 areas have the worst delinquency rates for the commercial mortgage market:

Warren-Farmington Hills-Troy, Michigan 6.3%
Miami, Florida -- 5.7%
Chicago -- 5.6%
Grand Rapids, Michigan 5.4%
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 5.2%
Indianopolis, IN -- 5.1%
Jacksonville, FL 5.0%
Sarasota, FL--4.9%
Dayton, Ohio -- 4.5%
Lake County, IL / Kenosha County, WI 4.4%

In the 1990's commercial mortgage delinquencies peaked around 9% and it's likely that as this recession lingers, unemployment climbs and vacancies rise--the rate of delinquencies will continue to escalate.

What I found quite interesting is that most of the "top-10" come from the Midwest and Florida---but as we all know the credit crunch has hurt consumers in California, Nevada, Arizona and Oregon as hard as the midwest---so I'm guessing in a few more quarters time you'll be seeing communities like Phoenix, LA, Las Vegas, and Portland creeping to the top of the list as well.

Fannie & Freddie's Serious Delinquencies Continue to Worsen

2009-05-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

Click on Image for a bigger chart

Data released from Freddie and Fannie show that the rate of serious delinquencies continue to worsen in March (Freddie) and February (Fannie).

Freddie saw a 2.29% serious delinquency rate in its single family home mortgage portfolio, while Fannie Mae saw almost 3% of it's single family home loan portfolio in the seriously delinquent category. [both of these data points are shown as bars & use the left hand scale on the chart].

Fannie and Freddie have large amounts of prime mortgages on their books and as you can see, as the unemployment rate and underemployment rate in the US continue to increase (Lines on the chart using the right hand scale), the numbers of people with prime mortgages who fall behind and run into payment problems continue to increase.

Since we can see that the unemployment continued to rise in April, 2009 I think we can safely forecast that the GSE's delinquency rate will continue to climb upwards.

Two Thirds of Las Vegas Home Mortgages are Underwater

2009-05-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

According to zillow some metropolitan areas of the country have just HUGE amounts of homes with mortgages in a negative equity situation.

Click for a Larger Image

The hardest hit locations include Las Vegas, NV (~2/3rds of home owners are underwater), many parts of California (Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Riverside) and Phoenix and Florida.

According to zillow, around 22% of homeowners with a mortgage in the US have negative equity. This makes it much less likely that these home-owners would be able to refinance---and should a negative life event (health issue, divorce, loss of job) occur you count on increased mortgage delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures.

Zillow says that 22% of Mortgages are Underwater

2009-05-06T06:43:00.000-07:00

According to zillow, at the end of Q1-2009 22% of homes with mortgages on them were underwater--i.e. the debt outstanding on the home was greater than the value of the home.

This is up from 17.6% of motgages being underwater in Q4-2008 and 14.3% in Q3-2008.

Inflation or Deflation

2009-05-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

Every so often I like to post a light hearted item. Hat tip to Greg Mankiw for featuring this funny video of Merle Hazard and Bretton Woods singing a country song about if we're heading for inflation or deflation.

Either scenario is bad for the mortgage market---If there's inflation, mortgage rates will rise causing slower principal repayments and possibly lower property values in the short term (as the monthly payments increase b/c of higher interest rates). If there's deflation, consumers will postpone spending b/c their dollars will buy more stuff in 1 year than what it will buy them today.

Mortgage Delinquencies Continue to Worsen for Sub-prime, Jumbo, and Option ARM loans

2009-04-28T12:20:00.001-07:00

Click for a Sharper Image

According to data from JP Morgan Chase 60+ delinquency rates across all loan catagories continue to rise.

The latest statistics from March 31, 2009 show that mortgage delinquencies for Subprime loans reached ~40% in March, and Option ARM loans (sometimes called pick-a-payment) went north of 30%, and this group has the steepest rise in default rates. [You can count on the Option ARM loans to continue increase in defaults as the resets roll through during 2009 - 2011]

These segments were followed by Alt-A mortgages with almost 20% of loans being 60 days or more behind and Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOC) hovering around 10%...

Another disturbing trend is the early uptick in Jumbo Prime loans that are past due.
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On the other side of the chart is the recovery values by loan type...

As you'd expect HELOC loans have the worst recovery values---this is because they are typically not the first lien on the property---But another disturbing trend is that the recovery rates across all types of loans has been on serious downward spiral.

Hat tip to: Dr. Housing Bubble for the chart

Game Theory on the Toxic Asset Purchase Plan

2009-04-17T15:02:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, the government suggested a plan that would allow financial companies to bid on "toxic assets" and use government money to help lever up the transaction.

I won't get into the exact details, but roughly speaking select financial firms can bid to buy assets that other financial firms want to sell---If the market price is $100 million, the buyer can put up some equity ($10 million) the government would match the equity ($10 million) and provide some cheap FDIC financing for the remainder ($80 million). And according to the treasury the loans will be non-recourse ("Through this new program, non-recourse loans will be made available to investors to fund purchases of legacy securitization assets.").

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If everyone were to bid honestly what they think the assets are worth, the plan could work---But I wanted to investigate if firms would have an incentive to overbid---or to somehow screw the taxpayer for the firms benefit.

The following example is very extreme, and more of a mental exercise---Suppose that there are two Companies (A & B)---And they are identical, and each owns a worthless asset on their books that is currently being held on their books at $100 million.

There are 4 Different Scenarios that could happen (See the Game Theory diagram above for Nash Equilibrium).

1) Neither firm sells nor buys toxic assets---In a few quarters they each must recognize a 100% loss (or a $100 million loss) and the government loses nothing.

2) Both firms decide to sell and buy $100 million (The Carrying value) of toxic assets---essentially they swap assets, paying $10 million in equity to buy the others' toxic asset. In a few quarters' time the toxic assets go to zero---Each firm loses their $10 million in equity by buying the other's assets---But at the time of the transacation they were paid $100 million in cash ($10 million from their competitor and $90 million from the government). So even though the 'buying firm' loses $10 million of it's equity investment (which is recognized as a loss), as long as another firm purchases assets at an inflated value, it gains. However, the government loses $90 million from each loan it made--or a $180 million loss.

3) & 4) Are the same---One firm decides to not to sell it's asset AND buys a toxic asset---In a few quarters, the firm that bought bad assets for $10 million equity investment and did not sell their assets---loses $110 million dollars. The firm that sold and did not buy does not have write anything off and loses nothing, while the government loses $90 million.

With no collusion, the Nash Equilibrium is for neither bank to buy toxic assets at inlated prices. (However, they may still choose to buy them at appropriate market prices). However, there are huge gains to be had by colluding---with only the threat of jail time and congressional hearings being the factors to sway decision makers away from such devious tactics.

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It's anybody's guess to see if the purchase of illiquid mortgage backed securities and other investments will help the financial system (or hurt the tax payer)---but in 1 year's time we will have a pretty good idea.

Fannie & Freddie Delinquency Rates vs Unemployment Rate

2009-04-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

Click for a Larger Image

It has been a couple of months since I've compared the serious delinquency rates at Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac with the unemployment rate and (U6) underemployment rate provided from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The news doesn't appear to be getting any better---The Fannie Mae delinquency rates on single family homes have incrased from 2.13% in November, 2008 to 2.77% in January, 2009 (The latest data-point available)---The delinquency rate at Freddie Mac has increased from 1.72% in December, 2008 to 2.13% in February 2009.

Given that the March Unemployment Rate is 8.5% and the U6 unemployment rate (which includes underemployed workers is 15.6%)---I estimate that you'll see Freddie's delinquency rates for March 2009 come in over 2.5% and Fannie's to be north of 3%... Keep in mind most of these mortgages were of significantly higher quality than your run of the mill sub-prime loan, Alt-A loan or Option Arm Loan---Those delinquency rates are significantly higher.

Expect More people to walk away from their mortgages

2009-03-18T13:21:00.000-07:00

It's been over 1 1/2 years since the "credit crunch" began in August 2007, and things don't appear to be getting any better---It's as if the economy continues to chug along the road of "death by 1,000 cuts" and it doesn't help that so many home owners are underwater in their mortgages and considering walking away from their financial obligations.

Case in point, 2 recent stories:

The New York Times recently wrote a piece that details the process from walking away from your home and how to play chicken with your mortgage lender.
Detroit City Councilman Kwame Kenyatta has walked away from his house---According to the story, the councilman paid $225,000 for the property in 2004 and now it's only worth 100,000...

With the media and our politicians setting the stage for people to walk away from their home loans, you can bet that many more people will be doing the same in 2009... And once the mortgage resets ramp up in 2010 and 2011, the real estate market will continue to deflate.

Homer Simpson gets foreclosed on

2009-03-17T13:26:00.001-07:00

Foreclosure has become so prevalent in our society even the writers at Fox's "The Simpsons" have decided to take on the issue. Marge & Homer have Countryfine auction off their house after blowing refinance money on Mardi Gras parties.

(Episode length ~ 22 minutes---but you get the gist in the first 10 minutes)

Foreclosures continue to rise

2009-03-12T05:34:00.000-07:00

According to a story released today on cnn.com the number of foreclosures continue to be up significantly vs last year.

Some states with the worst levels of foreclosure include:

Nevada (1 in 70 houses in foreclosure)
Arizona (1 in 147 houses in foreclosure)
California (1 in 165 houses in foreclosure)
Florida (1 in 188 houses in foreclosure)

Things in South Carolina got significantly worse compared to last year---As South Carolina's unemployment rate jumped to double-digits, foreclosure filings jumped 254%---and now foreclosures represent 1 in every 818 South Carolina homes.