Mortgage Delinquencies

The number of mortgage delinquencies was down from the previous quarter.  Mortgage delinquencies represents the number of mortgages that were at least one payment behind in the last quarter.  It is considered a lagging indicator.   When correlated with home inventories is considered a signal of the housing markets health.  The prior quarter was 10.06%,  this recent quarter came in at 9.85% ( a small improvement).  This on the surface would seem to be good news, but remember the signal is for home inventories to be down as well.  Unfortunately home inventories are soaring, so this does not signal a recovery ( read more on home inventories here ).