First-time delinquent home loans fell to 0.84 percent of the 50.2 million mortgages in March, the first month below 1 percent since 2007, before a wave of defaults led to the financial crisis, according to a report today by Lender Processing Services Inc., Bloomberg News reported today. The rate of first-time defaults, defined as loans that went from performing to at least 60 days delinquent, peaked at 2.89 percent in January 2009. Mortgages at least 30 days delinquent or in some stage of foreclosure fell to 5 million in March, down from a peak of 7.7 million in January 2010, according to Lender Processing Services, a real estate information service based in Jacksonville, Fla. That’s still more than double the 2.2 million non-current mortgages of January 2005, when the housing market was rising toward its peak. Tight lending standards have made it harder for borrowers to obtain mortgages, helping drive down default rates while reducing the homeownership rate in the first quarter to 65 percent, the lowest since 1995.
