More than 96% of mortgages were current and performing at the end of the 2019 third quarter, a slight improvement from the same period in 2018 (at more than 95%), the federal regulator of national banks said Thursday.
In its Mortgage Metrics Report, Third Quarter 2019, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said that first-lien mortgages included in the report comprise 29.8% of all residential mortgages outstanding in the United States, or approximately 16 million loans totaling $3.13 trillion in principal balances.
In other areas, the OCC stated that new foreclosures had increased during the third quarter of 2019 compared to the previous quarter, with 21,492 new foreclosures, up 0.4%. However, foreclosures are down nearly 25% (24.6%) from the third quarter of 2018.
The agency also reported mortgage servicers completed 13,950 mortgage modifications in the third quarter of 2019, with 73% of the modifications reducing borrowers’ monthly payments.