by Calculated Risk on 10/06/2014 07:15:00 AM

Black Knight Financial Services (BKFS) released their Mortgage Monitor report for August today. According to BKFS, 5.90% of mortgages were delinquent in August, up from 5.64% in July. BKFS reports that 1.80% of mortgages were in the foreclosure process, down from 2.66% in August 2013.

This gives a total of 7.70% delinquent or in foreclosure. It breaks down as:

• 1,852,000 properties that are 30 or more days, and less than 90 days past due, but not in foreclosure.
• 1,143,000 properties that are 90 or more days delinquent, but not in foreclosure.
• 913,000 loans in foreclosure process.

For a total of ​​3,908,000 loans delinquent or in foreclosure in August. This is down from 4,465,000 in August 2013.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph from BKFS shows percent of loans delinquent and in the foreclosure process over time.

Delinquencies and foreclosures are generally moving down - and might be back to normal levels in a couple of years. 

The second graph from BKFS shows the mortgage performance by vintage.

From Black Knight:

Looking at the weighted average loan age among the active mortgage population, Black Knight found that while loan age varies among different credit score groups, in general the average loan age has been rising steadily. According to Kostya Gradushy, Black Knight’s manager of Research and Analytics, the weighted average loan age has reached its highest point ever.

“In terms of the entire active mortgage population, average loan age has been rising steadily for at least the last nine years,” said Gradushy. “The high volume of originations in 2013 resulted in a temporary slowdown. However, the average loan age since then has hit its highest level ever at 54 months. Reviewing the data at a more granular level, we see that the age of loans with credit scores of 750 and above has remained relatively constant for the last five years. However, lower credit score loans – particularly those with scores below 700 – have seen dramatic increases in average age.”

“We also looked again at mortgage performance and found delinquencies in 2012-2014 vintage loans lower than any of the prior seven years. In fact, even among borrowers with lower credit scores, these vintages are outperforming all previous vintages. This holds true for FHA mortgages as well, where we found that early-stage delinquencies were lower than in all pre-2012 vintages.”
emphasis added

There is much more in the mortgage monitor.