Black Knight’s First Look at December mortgage performance data showed a strong monthly improvement in the national delinquency rate (down 3.75% from November and more than 12% from last year). At 3.40%, 2019 ended with the delinquency rate within 0.04% of the record low set back in May.
The foreclosure rate fell again in December to reach a new 14-year low and, in fact, the lowest on record outside the final five months of 2005. At 0.46%, the national foreclosure rate is now down almost 12% year-over-year, with just 245K loans remaining in active foreclosure.
There are now 2,047,000 loans in some stage of delinquency (30 or more days past due or in active foreclosure). This is down 236K from the same time last year and marks the lowest year-end volume since the turn of the century.
After a 19% drop in November, prepayment activity ticked up slightly, rising 1.43% for the month. This suggests that the recent leveling off of interest rates has had a flattening effect on refinance activity. Even so, prepayments are still up 126% from this time last year.
Our First Look is the earliest take on the month’s mortgage data, presenting high-level stats from our industry-leading McDash loan-level mortgage performance database. We provide a more in-depth review of this data and more in our monthly Mortgage Monitor report, which includes analysis supplemented by detailed charts and graphs that reflect trend and point-in-time observations.
In producing the Mortgage Monitor, Black Knight’s Data & Analytics division aggregates, analyzes and reports upon the most recently available data from our vast mortgage and housing related data assets. Information is gathered from McDash, the Black Knight HPI and our robust public property records database covering 99.9% of the U.S. population.
The December 2019 Mortgage Monitor report will be available online by Feb. 3, 2020.
For more information about gaining access to Black Knight’s loan-level database, drop us an email at Mortgage.Monitor@bkfs.com.