TransUnion: Mortgage Delinquency Roll Rates Peaked in Summer of 2009

Chicago – The number of consumers “rolling” their delinquency status on mortgage payments from 30- to 60 and 60- to 90 days past due peaked in July 2009, according to a new study from TransUnion. Approximately 24.4 percent of consumers who were 30 days past due on their mortgage payments in June 2009 became 60 days past due in July 2009, and nearly 37.6 percent of consumers 60 days delinquent on their mortgage payments became 90 days late in that same time.

“Consumers who are past due on their mortgages are always susceptible to going into more severe stages of delinquency. We found that this vulnerability was exacerbated during the recession as housing prices declined and unemployment increased,” said FJ Guarrera, vice president in TransUnion’s financial services business unit and one of the authors of the study. “Coincidentally, we noted that roll rates observed in the study reached their apex one month after the end of the recession as officially determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research. This timing is a clear illustration of how credit dynamics can lag economic dynamics: although we may have left the worst of the recession behind as we entered recovery economically, from a credit perspective we were just hitting the toughest period for consumer default.”