Sunbelt Metros Continue to Outpace Others in Serious Mortgage Delinquency Rate
Leah Hendey and Rob Pitingolo
Serious Delinquency Rates Stabilize in 100 Largest Metros
The average serious delinquency rate for the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas stood at 9.7 percent in December 2010, down from a high of 10.4 percent at the end of the 2009. Rates of serious delinquency stabilized in all of the 100 largest metro areas over the past year, with only eight areas experiencing small increases in the rate. The change in serious delinquency was driven by a change in the 90+ day delinquency rate rather than a change in the share of loans in foreclosure: the average 90+ day delinquency rate for the largest 100 metro areas dropped 1.4 percentage points in the past year but the average foreclosure rate rose 0.7 percentage points.
Several California Metro Areas Saw Large Year-Over-Year Decreases
Although California is still experiencing above-average rates of serious delinquency, several California metro areas such as Riverside, Stockton, Bakersfield, and Modesto have experienced some of the largest year-over-year drops in seriously delinquency across all top 100 metro areas. Riverside-San Bernardino still ranks 10th in serious delinquency across the largest 100 metropolitan areas at 15.4 percent but dropped more than four percentage points since December 2009. Other California metro areas, like San Diego and San Francisco, with lower serious delinquency rates did not see as substantial declines.
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Sunbelt Metro Areas Continue to Top Serious Delinquency Rankings
Sunbelt metro areas in Florida and the southwestern United States continue to have some of the highest rates of serious delinquency - well above the 100-metro average. Other than Las Vegas, the ten metropolitan areas with the highest rates are all in Florida. Miami remains the metro area with the highest rate of serious delinquency at 24.6 percent in December 2010, down only 1.2 percentage points from a year ago. Las Vegas follows closely at 24.1 percent, down only 0.5 points. The serious delinquency rates in the metro areas in the chart below have stabilized in the past year but do not show the significant downward trend of the California metropolitan areas.
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Serious Delinquency Rates Stabilize for Many Midwestern Metros
While a few Midwestern metro areas, such as Detroit and Youngstown, saw significant downward year-over-year trend in serious delinquency, others like: Chicago, Columbus, and Milwaukee, showed signs of stabilization rather than a clear downward trend in the past year. Youngstown still ranks 22nd among all metropolitan areas on the foreclosure rate in December 2010 at 9.3 percent though the serious delinquency rate has decreased from 14.9 percent to 13.7 percent in the past year. Serious delinquency decreased in Detroit from 13.2 percent to 11.4 percent in the same period. In Chicago, serious delinquency rose quickly in 2009 but flattened out in 2010.
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Many Metros with High Serious Delinquency Rates Saw Rates Fall More Quickly in 2010
Generally, most of the 100 largest metro areas with serious delinquency rates that were falling most quickly between December 2009 and December 2010 still had the highest shares of serious delinquency. (See table below.) In addition, the majority of the metro areas with the highest share of serious delinquency were in this group, with an average percentage point decrease of 1.8 since December 2009. A few metro areas in the top third of serious delinquency rates did see small increases in the past year, including more than a half of a percentage point in Jacksonville and Poughkeepsie. Only five of the 100 largest metro areas: Boston, Denver, Greenville, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C., had serious delinquency rates that were falling more quickly and ranked in the lowest third on the serious delinquency rate. Metro areas in the middle third of serious delinquency were more evenly split across levels of change in this period.
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Rob Pitingolo