According to Mortgage Insurance Companies of America (MICA), this past February privately insured delinquent homeowner cures (80,758) outpaced new defaults (68,675) in the U.S. for the first time since March 2006.
Keep in mind that over the past year new defaults by homeowners with private mortgage insurance have outpaced cures 1,063,114 to 709,446.
Also of note, 73,180 applications for private mortgage insurance were received in February 2009 with 56,210 polices issued, this past February only 20,128 applications were submitted with 14,924 policies issued.
MICA February 2010 Statistical Report [privatemi.com]

7 thoughts on “Privately Insured Cures Outpace Defaults For First Time Since 2006”
  1. Another meaningless distortion. More defaults required to qualify for the various programs, more cures when some government cheese is accepted. We’re sort of in between programs so the cure rate will be higher than the default rate.

  2. Hard to say what this means without having more information. It’s not clear to me how this group of loans fits into the overall picture of loans, in number, in quality, and in lending standards. Are these loans prime 30-year fixed 20% down loans coupled with a second mortgage to reduce the down payment? Or are they prime 30-year fixed lower-than-20% down? Or something else?
    I would also be interested in a few more things — e.g. what is the total number of delinquent loans, what is the total number of all loans in this category, what is the re-default rate (since in many cases this can be significant), what is the age of defaults at the moment.
    It may or may not be a good or helpful stat, but I’d like to know how to put this in context.

  3. The actual MICA report, as opposed to the press release, shows a similar disconnect from reality as NAR’s reports and its PR; both hope you’ll stop at the latter and not bother to read the former. First, “cures” don’t always mean a happy ending for the borrower. Second, the major PMI writers are all privately held and hence are not going to issue a press release on the key number — payouts on claims.
    As the Editor noted apps, policies, and dollar value written are all off dramatically from 2/09. Primary insurance in force has gone down steadily over that period. Match that to FNMA’s estimates of mortgage $ volume (2010 estimates revised downward for the 3rd time this year) and there is one conclusion — all the money poured out of the federal coffers to support the housing market is just sand against the tide.

  4. Wanna bet how many of these delinquent loans are bubble-era mortgages that got refied under the “extend and pretend” circus that started in 2007?
    What would be really interesting is to see how many were actual knife-catchers from 2007-2009 that believed the idiots who called bottom way too soon?

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