Fla. No. 2 for mortgage delinquency - South Florida Business Journal:

Florida ranked second among states with the highest mortgage delinquency rates in the third quarter, at 13.3 percent, according to

TransUnion.com, a credit and information management company. At 14.5 percent, Nevada was No. 1.

Nationwide, the ratio of borrowers who were 60 days or more past due on their mortgages increased for the 11th straight quarter, hitting an all-time high of 6.25 percent in the quarter, up from 5.81 percent the previous quarter.

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There is some good news, however. TransUnion found that while the rate is up, it’s not going up as much as in previous months.

For example, the delinquency rate increased almost 14 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008 to first quarter of 2009, while the percent change from first quarter to second quarter of 2009 increased by just 11.3 percent.

"While it continues to be a positive sign that the increase in mortgage borrower delinquency rates has slowed for three consecutive quarters, we have to keep things in perspective,” said FJ Guarrera, vice president of TransUnion's financial services division, in a news release. “Delinquency rates are rising and expected to peak at record levels. Until the housing market can consistently demonstrate several months of home value appreciation and the unemployment rate improves, mortgage delinquency will likely continue to rise."

The average national mortgage debt per borrower dropped 0.36 percent, to $193,121 from the previous quarter's $193,811. The third quarter average represents a 0.43 percent increase over the average mortgage debt per borrower level of $192,287 for the prior-year period.

The area with the highest average mortgage debt per borrower was the District of Columbia, at $359,788, followed by California, at $354,510, and Hawaii at $312,844. The lowest average mortgage debt per borrower was in West Virginia, at $97,265.

Information for the report was culled from 27 million anonymous, randomly sampled, individual credit files, representing about 10 percent of credit-active U.S. consumers.