TMFBent (99.85)

No Surprise, Major Rise in Delinquent Mortgages

December 02, 2008 – Comments (1)

If you like to paint the fugliest picture, you could call it a 40% increase, year over year, in the rate of mortgage deadbeat-ism. 

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, 3.96 percent of people holding a mortgage were at least 60 days behind in payments, compared with 2.56 percent in the 2007 third quarter.

In other words, a 140 basis point rise in a year's time. And this was before the economy really started to tank for most people...

"It's nothing short of staggering," said Ezra Becker, principal consultant in TransUnion's financial services group. Becker noted the rate had hovered at about 2 percent for years, until the second quarter 2007, when it started climbing.

Moreover, the climb is not likely going to slow, he said. "Our projections are that it's not only going to be increasing but it's increasing at a faster pace," he said. The fourth quarter of 2008 could see the percentage of mortgages past due jump as high as 4.6 to 4.7 percent, he said...

It's completely obvious, as it has been for some time, that too many knuckleheads simply borrowed more than they'd ever be able to repay. This has little to do with resets, liquidity, or rates, and everything to do with widespread greed and a complete failure in lending standards.

Might as well pump more money into the banks holding "assets" based on chopped up versions of this garbage, hey Hank? Hey Ben? Hey Sheila B?

Read all about it.