March 3, 2011 (Shirley Allen)

Lender Processing Services (LPS) released its January Mortgage Monitor Report which shows that while foreclosure starts decreased in the first month of 2011, they still outnumber foreclosure sales by almost three to one. At the end of January, foreclosure inventories stood at more than eight times historical averages.

The report also revealed that repeat foreclosures, loans that had been previously in foreclosure then brought current, and then falling back into foreclosure, now account for more than 35 percent of foreclosure starts.

Data in the January report also showed that the foreclosure process continues to drag out as the timelines for foreclosure starts, days in inventory and sales all continue to extend.

Serious delinquencies continue to rise as well.

Deterioration in the 90+-day’s delinquent category increased last month, for the first time since May 2010. The 90+ category has grown overall, with the largest increase in the 12+-month category as loans were removed from foreclosure.

As of January 31, 2011, there are now more than 2.2 million loans 90 days or more delinquent but not yet in foreclosure, with more than 6.9 million loans in some stage of delinquency or foreclosure.

As reported in LPS’ First Look release, other key results from LPS’ latest Mortgage Monitor report include:

Total U.S. loan delinquency rate: 8.9 percent
Total U.S. foreclosure inventory rate: 4.16 percent
Total U.S. non-current* loan rate: 13.1 percent
States with most non-current* loans: Florida, Nevada, Mississippi, Georgia, New Jersey
States with fewest non-current* loans: Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota
*Non-current totals combine foreclosures and delinquencies as a percent of active loans in that state.

Note: Totals based on LPS Applied Analytics’ loan-level database of mortgage assets and are extrapolated to represent the industry.

Tags: Lender Processing Services, LPS, Mortgage Monitor Report, foreclosure inventories, repeat foreclosures, non-current loans