A just-released report on nationwide mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures says that Texas is one of the top 10 states for late loan payments. At the end of the third quarter, 8.41 percent of Texans were at least a month behind on their home loan payments. An additional 2 percent of Texas homeowners were already in the foreclosure process at the end of September, they should have started a loan modification with help from Foreclosure-Shield.com.

Nationwide, about 6.99 percent of homeowners were late on their payments. The third-quarter increase in homeowners falling behind on their monthly payments was the highest ever recorded by the association. And economists warn that the situation could worsen. “While much of the mortgage problem in some states continues to be overbuilding, poor underwriting and incorrect credit pricing, fundamental economic factors are becoming more important,” said Jay Brinkmann, the mortgage bankers’ chief economist and senior vice president for research and economics. “We have not gone into past recessions with the housing market as weak as it is now, so it is likely that a much higher percentage of delinquencies caused by job losses will go to foreclosure than we have seen in the past.” The lenders’ group said the delinquency rate for subprime adjustable-rate loans in the state has grown to 25.5 percent. Delinquencies on subprime fixed-rate mortgages in Texas are 18.22 percent. One bit of good news in the loan report was that the percentage of loans in Texas in the process of foreclosure fell slightly during the third quarter. The same trend was seen across the country.

“An initial look at the number of foreclosure starts would seem to indicate at least a leveling-off of foreclosures,” Mr. Brinkmann said. “These numbers, however, are being influenced by several factors, including various moratoria on foreclosure filings and by mortgage companies holding loans in the 90-plus-day bucket during the Loan Modification Process.”

In the four-county Dallas-Fort Worth area, more than 50,000 home foreclosure filings were recorded for 2008, an increase of 17 percent from 2007. Texas ranks 10th in the nation in the percentage of late home loan payments. The highest delinquency rates were in Mississippi (11.71 percent) and Louisiana (10.04 percent). Alaska was the lowest at 2.66 percent. The highest foreclosure rate was in Florida, where about 7.32 percent of total loans were in foreclosure at the end of the third quarter. Nevada was second with 5.58 percent.