A Delinquency Rate That Has Not Moved in a Year
Federal Reserve data (FRED series DRSFRMACBS) puts the delinquency rate on single-family residential mortgages at all US commercial banks at 1.78% in the fourth quarter of 2025. That is not an outlier reading; the rate held in a narrow 1.77% to 1.79% band across all four quarters of 2025 (Q1 1.78%, Q2 1.79%, Q3 1.78%, Q4 1.78%), a level far below the double-digit delinquency rates the mortgage industry saw during the 2008 to 2010 foreclosure crisis.
A delinquency rate this flat and this low is normally read as a leading indicator that no broad, credit-quality-driven foreclosure wave is currently building in the underlying loan pool. Borrowers, on the whole, are keeping up with their mortgage payments at close to the same rate they were a year ago.
Foreclosure Filings Are Climbing Anyway, Just Not for the Delinquency Reason
At the same time, US foreclosure filings reached 227,548 properties in the first half of 2026, up 21% year over year and up 28% from the first half of 2024, with bank repossessions climbing 33% over the same period to 27,983 properties. A flat delinquency rate and a rising foreclosure count are not a contradiction, they are two different stages of the same pipeline: delinquency measures how many borrowers are currently behind, while foreclosure filings measure how many already-distressed loans are finally being processed, a lag that can widen even while new delinquencies stay flat.
For lead sourcing, that distinction matters more than the headline number. A rising foreclosure count driven by processing a backlog, not a fresh wave of borrower distress, still produces the same thing a wholesaler needs: a real seller facing a real deadline. VA Horizon’s trained VAs work pre-foreclosure and foreclosure lists on exactly that logic, calling the owner while there is still time to sell, with an in-house SDR qualifying the ones ready to talk before the process finishes.
The Numbers
The delinquency rate on single-family residential mortgages at all US commercial banks (FRED series DRSFRMACBS) was 1.78% in Q4 2025, seasonally adjusted.
That delinquency rate held in a 1.77% to 1.79% band across all four 2025 quarters, far below the double-digit rates of the 2008 to 2010 foreclosure crisis.
US foreclosure filings reached 227,548 properties in the first half of 2026, up 21% year over year and 28% from the first half of 2024.
Bank repossessions (REO) reached 27,983 properties in the first half of 2026, up 33% from the first half of 2025.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED series DRSFRMACBS
- ATTOM, Mid-Year 2026 Foreclosure Market Report