MIAMI—With mortgage delinquency rates ranging from 3% to 23%, depending on the city, Laredo, Texas, tops all other cities in the percentage of borrowers behind on payments, a new report shows.
WalletHub has released its new report on the Cities With the Highest Mortgage Delinquency Rates, to highlight where people are at the biggest risk of credit score damage and foreclosure. WalletHub ranked 100 cities by analyzing proprietary user data from Q1 2024 to Q2 2024.
Laredo
Laredo’s 23% of mortgages in delinquent status as of Q2 2024 is significantly higher than the delinquency rate in other major cities, with no other city in the report surpassing 17%.
“The one piece of good news is that Laredo residents’ delinquency rate is declining. Even though it’s still the highest in the nation, it experienced a nearly 10% decrease between Q1 2024 and Q2 2024. That said, almost all major cities showed decreases during the same time period,” WalletHub said. “In addition to the general struggles of high home prices and high interest rates, Laredo has a decently high amount of residents in financial distress. In addition, Laredo is one of the weakest cities when it comes to residents’ money management skills.”
Detroit
Detroit ranks second among the cities where people are most delinquent on their mortgages, with over 16% of mortgages delinquent as of Q2 2024. While that’s a very high number, it’s still around 7% below the delinquency rate in the top city, WalletHub noted.
“In general, Detroit has a serious delinquency problem even outside of mortgages. The Motor City ranks second among the cities where people are the most delinquent on all types of debt combined. However, as was the case in most major cities, Detroit’s mortgage delinquency rate actually decreased between Q1 2024 and Q2 2024, dropping by 5.7%,” WalletHub said.
Baton Rouge, La.
Baton Rouge is the city with the third-highest mortgage delinquency rate, with residents delinquent on close to 15% of their mortgages, just slightly behind Detroit.
“One contributing factor to Baton Rouge’s high delinquency rate is that it ranks 11th among the cities with the most people in financial distress. It also ranks seventh among the cities where people are most delinquent on debt in general,” WalletHub said. “In addition, Baton Rouge did have a decrease in the delinquency rate between Q1 2024 and Q2 2024, but it was a smaller decrease than in the other top cities, only declining by less than 4%.”
Following Baton Rouge, Philadelphia and Newark, N.J., round out the top five cities with the highest delinquencies. Madison, Wis., had the lowest mortgage delinquency rate in the study.