July mortgage data signals a slow turn — foreclosures aside
“While the national delinquency rate and serious delinquency inventory declined, the more telling trend is that new default activity has eased from last year’s levels in four of the past five months and cure activity is improving.”
US home prices rose 2.1% year over year in Q2 2026, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), but inflation continued to outpace appreciation, extending real-term home price declines despite positive nominal growth.https://t.co/7ilIElFiKx
— Mortgage Professional America Magazine (@MPAMagazineUS) August 25, 2026
Cures hit a nine-month high as new defaults ease
Serious delinquencies — loans 90 or more days past due but not yet in foreclosure — fell for a fifth consecutive month to 563,000, though that count remains 87,000 above the July 2019 pre-pandemic baseline, ICE reported.
Among borrowers entering serious delinquency, 102,000 did so in July, down 4% year over year.
Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans led the improvement, recording 13% fewer new defaults than a year earlier.
That FHA pullback extends the trend MPA identified in June when data pointed to a turning point in FHA default activity, the largest annual decline in new FHA defaults in more than four years.
