Home mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures were unchanged or down in the second quarter of the year, compared to the previous quarter and the previous year, according to a report issued Wednesday by the regulator of national banks.
In its Mortgage Metrics Report, Second Quarter 2023, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said seriously delinquent mortgages – mortgages that are 60 or more days past due and all mortgages held by bankrupt borrowers whose payments are 30 or more days past due – was 1.1% of all mortgages in the second quarter of 2023, the same as the previous quarter, and a decrease compared to 1.5% a year ago.
As for foreclosures, the OCC report said 7,480 new foreclosures were started by servicers in the second quarter of 2023, a decrease from the first quarter and from a year earlier. Also, the OCC reported, 2nd quarter foreclosure volume was lower than pre-COVID-19 pandemic foreclosure volumes in 2020.
Mortgage modifications were down significantly from the first quarter, the report stated: 8,623 alterations were made, down 16.9%. The report also noted that of the modifications, 4,372, or 50.7%, reduced the loan’s pre-modification monthly payment, and 7,279 or 84.4%, were “combination modifications”—modifications that included multiple actions affecting the affordability and sustainability of the loan, such as an interest rate reduction and a term extension.
First-lien mortgages included in the report comprise 22% of all residential mortgage debt outstanding in the United States or approximately 12 million loans totaling $2.8 trillion in principal balances.
The report also noted that 97.3% of all mortgages in the report were current and performing at the end of the quarter, compared with 97.6% in the first quarter 2023.
OCC Mortgage Metrics Report, Second Quarter 2023 (PDF)