The number of Connecticut homeowners who were seriously delinquent on their mortgages declined for a second straight quarter.
The number of Connecticut homeowners who were more than three moths behind their mortgage payments fell to 7.56 percent at the end of September, compared to 7.83 percent at the end of the second quarter of this year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Nationally, the number of Americans at risk of foreclosure also improved slightly over the summer but hardly enough to suggest the crisis in the housing market is close to over, The Associated Press reports.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday about 9.1 percent of all U.S. homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment in the July-September quarter. That figure, which is adjusted for seasonal factors, fell from 9.9 percent in the April-June quarter and from a record high of more than 10 percent in the January-March quarter.
The percentage of homes in the foreclosure process fell slightly to 4.4 percent from 4.6 percent, the trade group said. And the percentage of mortgage holders who were seriously delinquent, at least 90 days past due, fell to 4.3 percent from 4.8 percent.
In a normal market, the percentage of seriously delinquent borrowers is around 1.1 percent, said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s vice president of research and economics.
The drop in the delinquency rate reflects a slightly better jobs market, Fratantoni said, but delinquencies and foreclosures remain elevated. They are expected to stay that way as long as unemployment is high and home values continue to fall.
“We still have three to four years to work through this overhang of delinquent loans, Fratantoni said.
