Distressed

Recent reports highlight the question of how much wage growth can do to sustain loan performance as pandemic relief gets rolled back, consumer costs rise and the housing market cools.

The jump for second mortgages and bank cards was even more pronounced, according to indices published by Standard & Poor’s and Experian.

But a slower-than-anticipated rate of repossessions suggest distressed homeowners are finding solutions.

While the government-sponsored enterprise’s single-family mortgages are still not performing as well as they did before the pandemic, the most recent vintages are getting there.

More than half of the seriously delinquent mortgages that did not have this type of payment relief were originated prior to ability-to-repay requirements enacted following the Great Recession, the latest Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia study found.

While smaller in number, initiated foreclosures had a similar consecutive-quarter gain as the market transitioned away from pandemic-related relief that has artificially constrained workout activity.

Private-market loans nudged the total number up during a processing lull, according to Black Knight.

The number of properties in limbo is up 10.3% from the same time last year, according to Attom Data Solutions.

An uptick in pandemic-related payment suspensions reflecting new or restarted plan activity previously occurred as the omicron variant spread, but activity has since subsided.

However, the seven institutions in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency study service 13% fewer loans compared with the third quarter of last year.