While the full Mortgage Monitor report won't be available until January, Lender Processing Services has released some highlights for its November month-end mortgage performance statistics.  While the report, derived from LPS's loan-level database of nearly 40 million mortgages shows a substantial improvement in the delinquency rate over the past year, it also shows an enormous overhang of delinquent loans that could eventually be foreclosed.

The national delinquency rate composed of loans 30 or more days past due but not in foreclosure was 8.15 percent in November.  This was an increase of 2.7 percent since October but the rate was down 9.6 percent since November 2010.

The rate of homes in foreclosure pre-sale inventory was 4.16 percent, down 3 percent from October but up 2 percent from one year earlier.  There are now 4.14 million home that are 30 or more days delinquent but not in foreclosure and another 2.12 million that are in the foreclosure pre-sale inventory for a total of 6.26 million properties that have the potential to become REO.

The states with the highest percentage of non-current loans are Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, and Illinois.