Are US mortgages starting to go bad in 2026?

They are starting to, from a low base. The New York Fed's household debt data for Q3 2026 shows mortgage lates rising. The levels are still close to their pre-2007 normal, so this is an early sign. Mortgages are about 70% of US household debt.

The number to watch is the share of mortgage balances that go from current to 90 days late in a single quarter. That means missing three payments in a row. It reached 0.26% in Q1 2026, the highest since 2013, and was 0.24% in Q3. Its 2009 peak was 0.75%, so today's rate is about a third of that.

Other mortgage readings in Q3 2026:

• New 90+ day lates over the past four quarters were 1.60% of mortgage balances, against 1.28% a year earlier. That is a rise of about 25%.
• The share of mortgage debt 90+ days late is 1.13%. Its 2003 to 2006 average was 1.03%.
• About 62,000 people had a new foreclosure on their credit report in the quarter, the most since early 2020.
• Home equity line balances rose $22.5B, more than in any quarter since 2005.

Auto loans and cards were already stretched. The share of auto debt 90+ days late is 5.66%. That is the highest since the series began in 2003, and above the 5.27% of 2010. Cards are at 12.9%, close to their 2010 peak of 13.7%. Card balances rose from $770B in early 2021 to $1,285B, up 67%.

Two cautions on the data. Mortgage balances rose $257B in the quarter. The NY Fed says about half of that came from balances that went missing from Q2 reporting and came back, so the year-on-year rise of $302B is the cleaner read. The NY Fed's 90+ figures also include severely derogatory debt: charged off, repossessed or foreclosed, and still being reported by the lender. A bank drops a loan from its 90+ count once it is charged off, so NY Fed rates run higher than bank rates.

The data is live on TREMOR (US Credit) as a tool, API, MCP server and CSV download: https://api.tigzig.com/downloads/tremor_us_households_nyfed.csv. Related: are US consumer credit delinquencies at crisis levels?, are auto loans the next subprime crisis? and are US families falling behind on loan payments?. Full analysis: https://www.tigzig.com/post/us-household-debt-delinquency-mortgages-starting-to-crack-nov2026. Not investment advice.