While Black Knight Financial Services maintains it was a function of seasonality, mortgage delinquencies increased in April by the largest percentage in nine years. The company, in its "first look" at the month's loan performance data, said the number of borrowers who were one or more months past due on their first mortgage, grew by 241,000 compared to March, an increase of 12.93 percent. The increase was largely isolated to early stage delinquencies.

Much of the surge, the largest for any month since November 2008, appears related to two calendar anomalies; the month ended on a Sunday, meaning some payments made late in the month may not have been posted, and March typically has the lowest delinquency rate of the year, making an increase in April almost inevitable.  Black Knight has said elsewhere that the March dip in delinquency is related to the receipt of tax refunds, Year-over-year delinquencies in April declined by 74,000 or 3.58 percent.

At the end of the period the total number of properties that were 30 days past due but not in foreclosure was 2,072,000. Of that total, 581,000 were seriously delinquent, that is 90 days past due but not in foreclosure, down 8,000 from March and 149,000 from a year earlier.

Other indicators of mortgage performance from the company were primarily positive.  The foreclosure inventory, loans in some process of foreclosure, hit a 10-year low during the month, down 15,000 loans from March and by 162,000 from April 2016, to 433,000. Properties in the inventory represented 0.85 percent of all mortgages in the country, a rate that was 3.47 percent lower than the previous month and 27.34 percent on an annual basis.

Nationwide the total number of distressed loans, those 30 day or more past due or in foreclosure, was 2,506,000.  This was 227,000 fewer loans than in March and 235,000 fewer than a year earlier. The resulting national delinquency rate was 4.09 percent.  The states with the highest incidence of distressed loans in April were Mississippi at 10.64 percent, Louisiana, 9.26 percent, Alabama, West Virginia, and Maine, all with rates between 7 and 8 percent.

The month saw the fewest foreclosure starts of any month since January 2005, 52,800, a -12.44 percent change from March and 10.04 percent fewer than a year earlier.

Black Knight measures the incidence of foreclosure sales as a percentage of delinquencies that are over 90 days in duration.  That rate was 1.96 percent in April, a decline of 14.20 percent month-over-month and 7.80 percent year-over-year.

Prepayment speeds, which are historically a good indicator of refinance activity, continued to fall, down by 10.63 percent from March. The April rate was 0.86 percent, down nearly a third from April 2016.

Black Knight present a more detailed analysis of loan performance factors in its Mortgage Monitor. The April report will be released by June 5.