by Calculated Risk on 2/16/2012 10:57:00 AM

A few comments from Jay Brinkmann, MBA’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Research and Education, and Michael Fratantoni, MBA's Vice President, Single-Family Research and Policy Development, on the conference call.

• Delinquencies were down in all buckets except the 30 day, and that was just a small increase.

• There were improvements in key categories: subprime fixed and ARMs, and Prime ARMs. The exception was FHA loans, and that is being driven by the large number of loans made in recent years.

• As far as delinquencies, Brinkmann said we are "halfway back" to normal of around 5% historically. This does not include the "in foreclosure" bucket; loans in foreclosure are still near record highs.

• On the possible impact of the possible mortgage settlement, Brinkmann said he expects the "in foreclosure" bucket to start declining.

• Non-judicial foreclosure states have improved much quicker than judicial states, and some non-judicial states are back to normal already.

• For state with the highest percentage of loans in foreclosure, the only non-judicial state in the top 17 states is Nevada. The top states are: Florida (14.27%), New Jersey (8.21%), Illinois (7.41%), Nevada (7.03%), Maine (5.92%) and New York (5.88%). California (3.45%) and Arizona (3.68%) are both below the national average.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This graph shows the percent of loans delinquent by days past due.

Loans 30 days delinquent increased to 3.22% from 3.19% in Q3. This is at about 2007 levels.

Delinquent loans in the 60 day bucket decreased to 1.25% from 1.30% in Q4. This is the lowest level since Q4 2007.

There was a decrease in the 90+ day delinquent bucket too. This decreased to 3.11% from 3.50% in Q3 2011. This is the lowest level since 2008, but still way above normal (probably around 1% would be normal).

The percent of loans in the foreclosure process declined slightly to 4.38% from 4.43%.

The key problem remains the very high level of seriously delinquent loans and loans in the foreclosure process.

Note: the MBA's National Delinquency Survey (NDS) covers about "42.9 million first-lien mortgages on one- to four-unit residential properties" and is "estimated to cover around 88 percent of the outstanding first-lien mortgages in the market." This gives about 5.8 million loans delinquent or in the foreclosure process.