FDIC says Late Mortgage Payments, Bank Profits up in Q4

We turn now to Reuters, who has some depressing news to share about late mortgage payments.

According to the news site, late payments for residential mortgages rose 15.6 percent in the fourth quarter.  Referencing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Reuters added that the increase in late mortgage payments followed a 5.2 percent increase in the third quarter.

Additionally, noncurrent mortgage loans — payments that are more than 90 days late — grew by $3.1 billion in the last three months of 2006 after rising by $974 million in the third quarter.

We’ll leave you with the words of Richard Brown, the FDIC’s chief economist: "While the degree of credit distress in these portfolios is still well below the peaks that we saw during and after the 2001 recession, it seems likely that their performance will get worse before it gets better.”