More Baton Rouge homeowners struggled to pay their mortgages in March as year over year delinquency rates for loans 30 and 90 days late increased, a CoreLogic analysis found.
Early stage delinquencies—mortgages between 30 and 59 days late—increased to 7.6% in Baton Rouge, up from 7.3% in March 2016. Serious delinquencies—those 90 days or more past due—increased to 4.1%, up from last year’s 3.2%, according to CoreLogic, a global property information and analytics firm.
The area’s foreclosure inventory rate, the number of homes in foreclosure as a proportion of active loans, remained steady at 0.9%.
Though Baton Rouge saw mortgage delinquency rates increase, Louisiana’s early stage and serious delinquencies fell. Mortgages 30 days late across the state fell to 7.3% in March, from 7.9% the previous year, and payments 90-plus days late declined to 3.6%, from 3.7%.
Nationally, 4.4% of mortgages were in some stage of delinquency in March, according to the report, a slight decline from the same period last year. Early stage delinquencies fell to 1.7% and serious delinquencies dropped to .59%.
“Dropping delinquency and foreclosure rates reflect the beneficial impact of stringent post-crisis underwriting standards as well as better fundamentals such as higher employment, household formation and home price gains,” Frank Martell, CoreLogic’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “Looking ahead, we expect these positive trends to continue as the industry shifts its focus toward solving supply shortages and looming affordability crises in an increasing number of markets.”
