Home loan delinquency rates hit 4-year high
Delinquency rates on home loans made by
federally chartered banks rose to a seasonally adjusted 1.91 percent in the
fourth quarter of 2006, a level not seen since 2003, but still well below
delinquency rates of the 1990s.
The Federal Reserve reported
Tuesday that the percentage of loans on which payments are at least 30 days
late continued what has been a gradual rise since hitting a recent historic low
of 1.38 percent in the fourth quarter of 2004.
Since then, the delinquency rate has climbed
slightly every quarter, with the exception of the fourth quarter of 2006, when
it fell to a seasonally adjusted 1.6 percent, down from 1.62 percent the
previous quarter.
The seasonally adjusted delinquency rate on
residential loans exceeded 2 percent for most of the 1990s, peaking at 3.36
percent in the last half of 1991. It was last above 1.9 percent in the first
quarter of 2003.
The Federal Reserve reported
that the seasonally adjusted charge-off rate on residential loans during the
fourth quarter of 2006 doubled from a year ago, to .12 percent.
The charge-off rate
-- the percentage of loans banks write off as bad -- has fluctuated more than
the delinquency rate in recent years. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the
charge-off rate has been as low as .06 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005,
down from recent peaks of .33 percent in the fourth quarter of 2003 and .44
percent in the third quarter of 2001.
Copyright 2007 Inman News
|
