Moody's: Home Equity Index shows improvement

Serious delinquencies and charge-offs in the home equity loan sector remained low in January 2005, according to the Moody's Investors Service's Home Equity Index Composite, released this morning. In January, the 60-plus day delinquency rate totaled 5.55%, an almost 27% decrease from January 2004's 60-plus day delinquency rate of 7.59%. The charge-off rate has been decreasing steadily since March 2004 and hit its lowest level in seven years in January 2005 The 0.75% charge-off rate for January represents a 32% improvement over the January 2004 charge-off rate of 1.10%.