Hundreds of thousands of American households are behind on their monthly home loan payments, facing the risk of mortgage delinquency or foreclosure at the highest rate since June 2022, a new report has found.
Around 878,000 American households were either late on their home loan payments for more than 90 days or were in foreclosure at the end of January, according to a report by ICE Mortgage Technology, a U.S. tech firm that provides software services to lenders.
This figure has risen by 175,000 over the last four months, marking a 25-per cent spike in serious delinquencies and foreclosures.
Around 80 per cent of the delinquencies and foreclosures were for FHA loans — a kind of loan insured by the U.S. Federal Housing Administration and provided by private lenders to Americans with lower credit scores and higher debt.
While February saw foreclosures decline compared to January by 16 per cent, they were up seven per cent compared to the same time last year, the report said.
Mortgage rates are climbing in the U.S., with the 30-year-fixed mortgage rate blowing past six per cent earlier this month.
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There was bad news for Canadians, too, as mortgage affordability worsened in 11 out of 13 major Canadian cities, a report by Ratehub.ca found.
The monthly Home Affordability Report by Canadian rate comparison platform Ratehub, which looks at mortgage and home affordability in 13 of Canada’s major cities, found that in 11 of them, it became harder to afford a mortgage.
Only Vancouver and St. John’s, N.L., saw affordability ease in February, while Montreal, Halifax, Hamilton, Victoria, Fredericton, Ottawa, Calgary, Regina, Toronto, Edmonton and Winnipeg saw affordability worsen.
As the Iran war raises oil and energy prices around the world, some experts are warning that additional stress may be on the way for Canadians looking to renew their mortgages this year.
The country is in the middle of a mortgage renewal wave, with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimating that at least 1.5 million households had already renewed their mortgage by the end of 2025 and a million more are set to do so in 2026.
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