Late mortgage payments climb in last quarter of ’05

The AP reports:

Late mortgage payments climbed to a 21/2-year high in the final quarter of 2005 as Gulf Coast homeowners struggled with fallout from the hurricanes and lofty energy prices along with rising interest rates squeezed the budgets of others across the country.
The Mortgage Bankers Association, in its quarterly mortgage survey, reported Thursday that the percentage of mortgage payments that were 30 or more days past due for all loans tracked rose to 4.70 percent in the October-to-December quarter of last year.
That was up from the prior quarter’s 4.44 percent delinquency rate and was the highest since the second quarter of 2003.
The association’s survey covers 41.2 million loans.

Higher rates will do that.