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Before a home falls into foreclosure, the warning signs typically appear months earlier. A borrower first misses a payment or two, landing in the 30- or 60-day delinquency bucket. If financial stress persists, they fall further behind\u201490 to 180 days past due\u2014and only around then (lenders generally can\u2019t start foreclosure until a borrower is at least 120 days delinquent) does the foreclosure process typically begin.<\/p>\n
This progression matters because the pipeline of early-stage delinquencies today tells us a great deal about where foreclosure activity is headed tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Right now, that pipeline is small by historical standards\u2014but it\u2019s growing. Looking at the National Mortgage Database, early-stage delinquencies (30 or 60 days past due) have been ticking upward since 2022, and more serious delinquencies (90 to 180 days past due) have followed in kind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The pattern is consistent with a housing market slowly normalizing after years of extraordinary intervention. When COVID-19 lockdowns began, the federal government implemented a nationwide foreclosure moratorium to protect homeowners from the economic fallout. These protections\u2014including forbearance programs\u2014were extended multiple times.<\/p>\n
At the same time, a historic surge in housing demand pushed home prices to new highs during the Pandemic Housing Boom, boosting homeowner equity and keeping foreclosure activity unusually low. The data shows this clearly: foreclosure and serious delinquency rates cratered to historic lows around 2021.<\/p>\n
But in recent quarters, foreclosures have steadily returned, inching closer to pre-pandemic 2019 levels. That foreclosure rebound picked up pace in Q1 2025, following the expiration of the moratorium on VA-backed mortgages. As those protections have wound down, the underlying stress that had been deferred\u2014not eliminated\u2014is finally surfacing in the data.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n