Nevada mortgage delinquency rates second highest in U.S. at 10.85 percent

Nevada posted the second-highest mortgage delinquency rate in the nation at 10.85 percent in the second quarter, nearly twice the national average of 5.49 percent, TransUnion financial services reported Wednesday.

At the same time, Nevada showed the greatest year-over-year decrease in average mortgage debt, dropping 4.4 percent, from $244,100 to $214,262, in the most recent quarter.

Las Vegas has seen its mortgage delinquency level drop from a high of nearly 19 percent in fourth quarter 2009 to 12.37 percent in the second quarter, said Tim Martin, housing group vice president at Chicago-based TransUnion.

"It's still high, but you're making great strides," he told the Review-Journal. "It's a little concerning that it's flat quarter-over-quarter. You're not out of the woods, but you've shown great improvement."

National mortgage delinquency rates declined nearly 9 percent in 2012 and are expected to continue to fall for the rest of the year.

While the decrease in delinquency rates is positive news, the rate of decline is still not at a pace that will push levels closer to pre-recession norms of less than 2 percent, Martin said.

"The pace of improvement should pick up when we review third-quarter results, helped by a few months of relatively good news on home prices, this year's resurgence in refinance activity related to HARP 2.0 and record low mortgage interest rates," he said.

All but five states saw mortgage delinquency rates decrease from the first quarter. About 76 percent of U.S. metros saw improvement in delinquency rates.

Two of the states most negatively impacted by the mortgage crisis, Arizona and California, have seen the greatest improvement. California's mortgage delinquency rate has dropped to 6.13 percent, while Arizona's rate declined to 6.14 percent. Both states had double-digit delinquency levels just two years ago.

Florida still has the highest delinquency rate in the nation at 13.48 percent.

"When I look at Nevada vs. Florida, you both have high delinquency rates, but Florida saw a 3 percent decline in delinquency rate and Nevada was 17 percent, so just in terms of the pace of working through this, you're making progress," Martin said.

The report from TransUnion is based on quarterly analyses of credit-active U.S. consumers and how they are managing credit related to mortgages, credit cards and auto loans.

Contact reporter Hubble Smith at hsmith@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0491.