15 States With the Most Seriously Overdue Mortgages

Homes in neighborhood — rawmn / Shutterstock.com

This story originally appeared on Construction Coverage.

Amid record-breaking unemployment numbers resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans are struggling to make their mortgage payments in 2020.

In response to the crisis, the CARES Act invoked a moratorium on home foreclosures for all federally backed mortgages that extends until the end of the year. The act also placed many federally backed mortgage loans into forbearance, allowing mortgage payments to be temporarily deferred for the nearly 70% of all outstanding mortgage holders with federally backed mortgages.

Recent data from the New York Fed shows that in light of forbearance programs, the percentage of total mortgage debt in the United States that is seriously delinquent (90-plus days overdue) is at a 15-year low. Taking forbearance into account, the New York Fed data likely reflects the short-term impact of the federal relief package on the current economic environment.

In contrast, CoreLogic data shows a five-year high in the seriously delinquent rate and a 21-year high in mortgage payments that are more than 120 days past due. CoreLogic’s analysis considers all missed mortgage payments regardless of whether they are in forbearance, presenting what is likely a more accurate picture of the impending mortgage payment crisis once the relief bill expires.

When forbearance programs expire and the moratorium on foreclosures is lifted, millions of homeowners could be in serious trouble. The states with the largest mortgage debt problems are likely to be the most impacted when forbearance programs expire.

Following are the 15 states with the highest rate of seriously delinquent mortgage debt.

Methodology

Homes in San Jose, California — pbk-pg / Shutterstock.com

Researchers used New York Fed data to identify the states with the highest mortgage delinquency rates. The New York Fed analysis takes forbearance programs into account when calculating mortgage delinquency rates.

According to the New York Fed, 61.1% of mortgages in early delinquency status switched to current between April and June. Additionally, there was a decline in those mortgages whose statuses worsened, suggesting forbearances are playing a key role in the most recently reported mortgage delinquency rates for 2020.

Millions of forbearances provided by the CARES Act will eventually expire and are likely to cause a large spike in delinquencies and foreclosures if employment levels don’t rebound.

To determine the average mortgage debt of households with mortgages, researchers compared New York Fed mortgage and population data with household and mortgage data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey (ACS). Median household income data also came from the ACS, while unemployment data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.