Mortgage debt ticks up for Hawaii homeowners

Hawaii homeowners continued to carry the third-highest mortgage debt in the nation in the first quarter of the year, a new TransUnion report shows.

The quarterly report found that the average debt per borrower grew slightly over the previous year to $313,404 from $312,324 in the first quarter of 2012, and was significantly higher than the national average of $186,018.

However, Hawaii’s delinquency — the rate of borrowers 60 days or more past due — fell year over year to 4 percent from 4.98 percent, similar to states across the country.

Nationally, delinquency rates had the largest decline since the company began collecting data in 1992, dropping to 4.56 percent from 5.78 percent a year earlier, TransUnion said.

"The year-over-year improvement was bigger for the nation in total and about the same for Hawaii. Hawaii was kind of right on average," said Tim Martin, group vice president of U.S. housing in TransUnion’s financial services business unit.

With rising home prices, low interest rates and improvement in the job market, more homeowners have been able to refinance higher mortgages, he added.

"Borrowers have had a pretty good run related to housing," Martin said. "Every time house prices increase a bit means a few more folks just on the margin of having negative equity, now because of price increases, may have some positive equity."

Excluding distressed sales, the state’s home prices in March grew 14.3 percent, the fifth-highest appreciation in the nation, according to CoreLogic, which analyzes property data nationwide.

Washington, D.C., has the highest mortgage debt per borrower at $376,121, while West Virginia posted the lowest at $103,054.

"There is no reason to believe the decline in mortgage delinquencies will not continue," Martin said. "All housing data point to further improvements in the delinquency rate."