The rates of default on home loans help tell the story of economic health in America. The following nine statistics trace important developments in the mortgage and housing industry and suggest the continued stabilization of these industries.

1. Subprime Auto Loans on the Rise
In 2014 and 2015, nearly 8.4 percent of borrowers who purchased a car in the first part of the year had missed payments by the last part of the year. Some analysts point to this trend as a possible signal that home loan defaults could start to increase as they did in 2008 when subprime lending practices began to unravel. However, others remark that while the auto loan industry can return to making subprime deals, a house is much more difficult to repossess than a vehicle is. As a result, lenders will probably not return to the mortgage subprime lending rates of early 2008. They realize now that they can’t afford not to play it safe with home loans.

2. Two Million Loan Modifications will See Interest Rates Reset
According to Black Knight, temporary loan modifications meant to defer foreclosures began expiring in 2015. This could be problematic because when their interest rates are reset, homeowners often end up in financial difficulty again and find themselves struggling to afford newly raised payments. Almost half of these 2 million rate resets are occurring on loans for homes that have not regained all of the equity that was lost in the 2008 housing crisis.

A person is considered “underwater” on a loan if he or she owes more than what the property is assessed to be worth. When homeowners are in this position, selling a home they can no longer pay a mortgage on is not always an option since most will end up losing money they don’t have. Some experts are concerned that the result of these rate resets could be increased loan defaults as a result of homeowners that need to sell my house fast for cash, and this has been true for a small percentage of homeowners.

3. 70 Percent of Delinquent Loans Originated Prior to 2009.
Despite the fact that loans originating before 2009 only make up about 30 percent of the 2016 mortgage market, these loans are still a risk. This is because a majority of loans that entered foreclosure in the first few months of 2016 were pre-recession mortgages. In other words, expiring loan modifications and interest rate hikes have hit a portion of these borrowers hard. While many of them were able to find ways to defer foreclosure proceedings during the peak of the recessions, being underwater on their homes is still problematic for many borrowers who are unable to extract themselves from large payments because of lower home values.

4. Home Loan Default Rates Fall Overall
Despite concerns about expiring loan modifications and lack of appropriate tax relief for homeowners, the delinquency rate on home loans for residential properties had fallen to 4.77 percent in 2015. This offers relief to many lending institutions as fewer loans go into default. The decline of loan delinquency holds for all stages of foreclosure and signals positive news for the mortgage industry as delinquency rates are now similar to levels from before the housing crisis.

5. 2016 Delinquency Rates Continue Declining
The non-seasonally adjusted rate for mortgage delinquency has continued to decline, sitting at a current rate of about 4.8 percent. After peaking near 11 percent in 2010 and hovering near 10 percent for a couple of years, the number of people defaulting on their loans has fallen steadily. Though not yet back to pre-2008 levels, the decline suggests the housing industry is maintaining its return to stability.

6. First-Mortgage Default Rate at .63 Percent
As the delinquency rates for home loans fell over the last several years, analysts were hesitant to predict they’d reach their current levels. In fact, first-mortgage defaults have decreased to .63 percent, and it appears to be a trend the rest of 2016 should sustain.

7. First-Time Homebuyers Face Rising Home Prices
Lenders are being more careful with first-time homebuyers, and it has paid off. The delinquency rates on these loans are less than three-fourths of 1 percent, which is even lower than they were 2004. As a result of these low rates of default, first-time borrowers who are financially stable are able to secure financing. They do face an issue of rising home prices, though, which typically accompany the falling delinquency rates the market has been seeing over the last several years. Fortunately, these rising prices are increasing at a much slower rate than they did before the housing bubble popped.

8. Second-Mortgage Default Rate Creeps up Slightly
Although first-time mortgages have seen a consistent decline in delinquencies, the last months of 2015 saw a small uptick in the default rate for a different category or home loans. Second-mortgage default rates were actually up going into 2016 by eight basis points from the start of 2015. These rates are still low enough overall, though, to help maintain the continued decline of overall loan delinquencies.

9. Consumer Debt Decrease In Line with Home Loan Default Rates
In 2010, the height of the loan default rate, credit card delinquency rates hovered near 5 percent. This was down slightly from 2009’s 6 percent rates. Since then, the default rates on consumer debt have mirrored loan default rates, decreasing steadily over the last several years and currently standing at a rate of 2.15 percent, which is the lowest rate lenders have seen since before 1995.

It is apparent by these lower rates of consumer debt delinquencies in addition to home loan defaults that consumers are working steadily to get lower their rates of debt. Borrowers and lenders alike have learned from the errors of the past and the statistics show it.