U.S. Mortgage Delinquencies Spike

"Mortgage delinquencies hit a record in April, well above anything seen during the Great Recession," reports Andrew Van Dam. "Some 3.4 percent of Americans became at least 30 days delinquent on their mortgage in April, according to a new analysis from CoreLogic."

While such high delinquency rates would usually indicate a sign of a housing crash to come, Van Dam offers a caveat about the many uncertainties of the current economy, and says a housing crash like in the Great Recession isn't certain. 

"For starters, the new delinquency figure includes an unknown number of households who are late on their payments because their loans are in forbearance, CoreLogic chief economist Frank Nothaft said." More details on the popularity of the mortgage forbearance program enabled by the CARES Act is included in the source article.

The mortgage delinquencies data also stands in contrast to industry reports of sales of new houses increasing faster than any year since 2005—at the peak of the housing boom of the aughts. 

In additional bad news about the economy and health of the housing market, new data from Apartment List indicates that 32 percent of households haven't yet made their housing payments for the month of July.