Irma blamed for Orlando’s surge in delinquent mortgage payments

Increased numbers of homeowners in Orlando — and most of Florida — fell behind on mortgage payments late last year, bucking national trends, according to a new report by CoreLogic.

Metro Orlando’s rate of homeowners falling at least a month behind tripled in December from a year earlier. Orlando homeowners were almost twice as likely to be late on mortgage payments as homeowners nationally, according to the real estate data group.

The news comes six months after Hurricane Irma ripped through the peninsula.

“The effect of the wildfires and hurricanes on delinquency transition rates was all too clear in our latest analysis,” said Frank Martell, president of CoreLogic. “… neighborhoods affected by hurricanes have seen a jump in transition rates in the months immediately following. These natural disasters have stalled or reversed the decline in 30- to 119-day delinquency rates that we had seen previously.”

Measuring mortgage delinquencies can serve as a foreclosure predictor and help indicate the overall health of the homeloan market. Metro Orlando’s spike in late payments was evident with a delinquency rate of 3 percent in December 2016 — rising to 9.5 percent a year later.

Osceola County teacher Clare Sheaffer moved in November after her Kissimmee house was damaged by Irma flooding. It’s a struggle, she said, to keep up mortgage payments to Chase now that her FEMA housing aid has ended. Until her contractor says her half-repaired home is habitable, she pays both her mortgage and $65 a night for an old hotel on U.S. Highway 192.

Chase was among lenders that allowed Irma victims to delay mortgage payments for three months, although those borrowers still have to pay the full amount.

“Some neighborhoods are performing better than others and we are working with customers who are still having trouble catching up on payments,” said JP Morgan Chase spokesman Michael Fusco.

CoreLogic’s natural-disaster theory was reflected in the fact that Florida metro areas in the Panhandle, which had limited hurricane damage, has increased numbers of homeowners paying mortgages on time.

Polk County led the state with an 11.7 percent rate of delinquencies, far exceeding the national rate of 5.3 percent. The only other Florida metro areas with a worse record than Metro Orlando’s were Miami and Fort Myers.