OCC reports improved mortgage performance for third quarter

Of the first-lien residential mortgages included in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) quarterly mortgage performance report, 97.2% of them were current and performing at the end of the third quarter, up from 95.6% a year ago, the OCC said Thursday.

The OCC said the first-lien mortgages included in its report comprise 22% of all residential mortgage debt outstanding in the United States, or approximately 12 million loans totaling $2.7 trillion in principal balances.

Among the key highlights:

  • 1.3% of mortgages were seriously delinquent in the third quarter, down from 1.5% in the previous quarter and 3.1% a year ago. Seriously delinquent mortgages, the agency said, include those 60 or more days past due and all mortgages held by bankrupt borrowers whose payments are 30 or more days past due.
  • Servicers initiated 9,835 new foreclosures in the third quarter, down from the previous quarter but up from a year earlier. The new foreclosure volume in the third quarter of 2022 is lower than pre-COVID-19 pandemic foreclosure volumes, the OCC said.
  • Servicers completed 16,160 modifications during the third quarter of 2022, a 42.5% decrease from the previous quarter.  Of the 16,160 modifications completed during the quarter, 11,696, or 72.4%, reduced the loan’s pre-modification monthly payment, and 15,037 or 93.1%, were “combination modifications.” These modifications included multiple actions affecting the affordability and sustainability of the loan, such as an interest rate reduction and a term extension, the OCC said.

OCC Reports Improvement in Overall Mortgage Performance