The mortgage and real estate industries’ top servicer, originator and data processing service, LPS, has reported a continuing deterioration of loans as the end of October 2009.  For every one loan improved toward current status, three more fell into delinquency or foreclosure.

LPS reports that one in 7.5 homeowners became delinquent or went into foreclosure as of the November 30 report that came out December 2. The total delinquencies reached an all-time high of 9.97%, a 5.46% increase from October and a 21.29% increase from November 2008. More than 4% of the loans that were current in December 2008, fell behind by 60 days or more, including foreclosure, by the end of November 2009.

The foreclosure rate in November was also at the highest rate since LPS started keeping data: 3.19%, a 1.46% increase from October and an 81.41% increase from November 2008.

First American CoreLogic speculates that the shadow inventory of foreclosures could be as high as 1.7 million.  Right now the number of new foreclosure filings is declining, but that is only because of government programs requiring possible workout before foreclosures are filed.  Most of these will still end up in the foreclosure process eventually. The states with the most delinquent or seriously delinquent loans were Florida, Nevada and Mississippi. Those with the fewest were North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska.