by Calculated Risk on 11/18/2012 01:32:00 PM

A key question is: What has happened to the mortgage delinquency rate over time by state?

For the graph below I plotted the serious delinquency rate for several states over time (states selected by serious delinquency rate in Q1 2010 - at the national peak). Although the national delinquency rate has been steadily declining, the state level data shows different patterns. There has been dramatic improvement in some non-judicial states, like Arizona and California - and some judicial foreclosure states are still seeing the seriously delinquent rate increase, like New Jersey and New York.

Previous posts on Q3 delinquencies:
• Press Release: Q3 National Delinquency Survey
• Q3 MBA National Delinquency Survey Graph and Comments
• Mortgage Delinquencies by Loan Type in Q3
• Serious Mortgage Delinquencies and In-Foreclosure by State

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

I picked the states with the highest serious delinquency rate in Q1 2010 (Serious delinquencies peaked nationally in Q1 2010).

The red column for each state is the Q1 2010 data.

The light blue column was for Q2 2007. This was just as the serious delinquency rate started to increase nationally. Even then, the serious delinquency rate was elevated in some states like Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.

The states that have seen the most improvement - Arizona, California, Michigan, Nevada - are all non-judicial states. Florida is a judicial state that has seen some decline in the seriously delinquent rate. However the serious delinquency rate in New Jersey and New York has increased since Q1 2010.

The national data is useful, but with the different foreclosure processes, we also need to look at state and local data. Some states will be back to a "normal" delinquency rate soon - other states will take years.