Mortgage delinquencies held steady in April, although serious delinquencies and foreclosure activity continued to climb from year-ago levels, according to Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)’s April 2026 First Look report, released on Tuesday.
The national delinquency rate was unchanged from March at 3.35%, remaining below pre-pandemic levels but up 13 basis points from April 2025. The increase was driven largely by a rise in seriously delinquent loans, which are mortgages that are 90 or more days past due but not yet in foreclosure.
“Mortgage performance remained broadly stable from March to April, with the overall share of past-due loans unchanged and below pre-pandemic levels,” Andy Walden, head of mortgage and housing market research at ICE, said in a statement.
“At the same time, the annual increase in past due loans continues to be concentrated in later-stage delinquencies, while early-stage delinquencies remain below last year’s levels, suggesting that most homeowners continue to stay on track,” Walden added. “Cure activity has also rebounded over the past two months, though it remains below year-ago levels, making it important to monitor in the months ahead.”
ICE reported there were 1.85 million properties at least 30 days past due but not in foreclosure at the end of April, up 96,000 from a year earlier. Among the total, 577,000 were seriously delinquent. That was up 101,000 year over year but down 11,000 from March.
Early-stage delinquencies (loans 30 to 60 days past due) fell by about 5,000 loans from a year ago.
Cure activity, which measures borrowers bringing delinquent loans current, moved higher in March and April after falling sharply between November and February. More than 62,000 borrowers cured seriously delinquent loans in each of the last two months, compared with an average of 42,000 during the prior four months.
Despite the rebound, cures from serious delinquency remained 20% below year-ago levels.
Foreclosure activity also continued to normalize. ICE reported 37,000 foreclosure starts in April, down 5.4% from March but up nearly 26% from a year earlier. Foreclosure sales rose 22.5% annually to 7,900.
The number of loans in active foreclosure increased to 276,000 in April, up 3,000 from March and 67,000 from a year ago. The foreclosure inventory rate rose to 0.5%, slightly below the 0.53% level recorded in March 2020 before the pandemic disrupted foreclosure activity nationwide.
Mortgage prepayment activity slowed as interest rates moved higher. ICE said the monthly prepayment rate, measured by single-month mortality, fell nearly 13% from March to a rate of 0.92%, although the figure remained more than 30% higher than a year earlier.
Mississippi had the nation’s highest share of noncurrent loans in April at 8.06%, followed by Louisiana at 7.95% and Alabama at 5.94%. California posted one of the lowest noncurrent rates at 2.26%, while Idaho had the lowest at 1.94%.
Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio recorded the largest annual increases in noncurrent loan percentages, while Idaho and New York posted the biggest declines over the past 12 months.
