Mortgage delinquencies set to soar

Severe delinquencies among mortgage holders increased more than 50 percent from year-ago levels during the third quarter, according to data released Tuesday morning by credit reporting agency TransUnion LLC. At the end of Q3, 3.96 percent of homeowners were 60+ days in arrears, compared to 2.56 percent one year earlier; historically, the severe delinquency rate has held the line at roughly 2 percent.

No more. Not in the face of a housing and mortgage mess that, as of yet, shows little sign of slowing down. And with the nation’s recession already 12 months old — longer than the average length of most prior recessions — it might be time to ask if strategies employed thus far by government officials and lawmakers in the name of helping bolster the economy might be doing more harm than good.

“It’s nothing short of staggering,” Ezra Becker, principal consultant in TransUnion’s financial services group, told the Associated Press.

California, Nevada, Florida and Arizona accounted for 38.4 percent of all originations in 2006, according to HDMA data. North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Vermont and Wyoming totaled just 0.6 percent of the entire market for mortgages — in fact, four of the five states were the very bottom of the market share table, according to HDMA data.

It’s possible that TransUnion’s data could be understating the true amount of delinquent borrowers, as well. While the agency pulls its data from a sample of 27 million consumer records and assesses past-due payment histories, a growing number of servicers are waiting to report missed mortgage payments to credit reporting agencies, according to various HousingWire sources in the field