Lenders started about 40,000 foreclosures in September, up 8.2% from August, according to the September edition of ICE’s First Look mortgage report, released Oct. 27. Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, Alabama and Arkansas had the highest shares of home loans that were either behind on payments or already in foreclosure.
A foreclosure start is the first formal step, the point where a lender begins the legal process of taking a home back. For anyone with a mortgage, the question is whether a rising start count says anything about their own loan, and the answer depends on where the house sits and when the loan was written.
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Is September’s jump the start of a foreclosure wave?
Not by the yearly measure. ICE counts the 40,000 starts as down 2.92% from September 2025, even though they climbed from August. Completed foreclosure sales ran about 8,200, which is up 5.35% on the month and 14.5% on the year.
The larger figure is the pile of homes already moving through the process. About 303,000 properties were in pre-sale foreclosure inventory, up 82,000 from a year earlier. ICE puts that at 0.55% of mortgages and says active foreclosures are up 37% on the year, the highest level since early 2019.
Behind that inventory sits a larger group of borrowers who have missed payments but are not yet in foreclosure. Loans 30 or more days past due numbered 2,027,000, up 71,000 from August and 151,000 from a year earlier. Roughly 579,000 of those were 90 or more days behind.
Which five states have the most loans in trouble?
ICE ranks states by their non-current rate, the share of mortgages that are delinquent or in foreclosure. September’s five highest were:
- Louisiana, 8.70%
- Mississippi, 8.61%
- Indiana, 6.49%
- Alabama, 6.45%
- Arkansas, 6.07%
In Louisiana that is more than one mortgage in every 12. The longest delinquencies come from the same five states, though in a different order: Mississippi at 2.50% of loans 90 or more days past due, Louisiana at 2.38%, Alabama at 1.91%, Indiana at 1.67% and Arkansas at 1.66%.
Nationally, ICE says the delinquency rate was 3.66% in September, up 12 basis points from August and in line with what it calls its seasonal norm. That is 34 basis points below the September 2019 level, so the national picture is calmer than the state list suggests.
The gap between the top and the fifth spot is wide. Louisiana and Mississippi sit within 0.09 percentage point of each other at the top, while Indiana and Alabama are separated by only 0.04 point. Arkansas, at 6.07%, is still more than two and a half points below the leader.
Counting everyone, ICE finds 2,331,000 properties were either 30 or more days past due or in foreclosure at the end of September. That is up 76,000 from August and 233,000 from a year earlier, and it is the combined group the state rankings measure.
Are the newest mortgages the ones failing?
ICE says loans originated in 2022 or later accounted for 43% of September’s foreclosure starts and 49% of completed foreclosure sales. More than three-quarters of active foreclosures had been delinquent for less than 18 months, and the report says loan aging has dropped to a 15-year low.
Serious delinquencies, meaning loans far behind on payments, were up 21% from a year earlier but down 5% from their February peak. The serious delinquency share was 1.04%, compared with a September average of 1.06% across 2017 to 2019. Serious delinquencies on FHA loans, which are backed by the Federal Housing Administration, have fallen 10% since February.
The report also tracks prepayments, loans paid off early through a refinance or a sale. Prepayment speed measured 0.59% in September, the sixth straight monthly decline from 1.06% in March and the lowest reading since February 2025. Speeds are down about 20% from a year ago.
ICE does not break the recent-vintage share down by state, so the report cannot say whether Louisiana’s or Indiana’s troubled loans skew newer than the rest of the country’s.
What does ICE want lenders to do?
Bob Hart, president of mortgage technology at ICE, said in the release: “Servicers need to reach homeowners early to help keep them in their homes.” A servicer is the company that collects the monthly payment, and it is the first call for a borrower who has missed one or sees a payment slipping out of reach.
ICE publishes the monthly First Look and its Mortgage Monitor on its mortgage data reports page, and the figures in them come from its loan-level database. The October update, covering the next month of payments, will show whether September’s rise in foreclosure starts holds.
For homeowners in the states at the top of the list, the practical reading is about timing. A borrower who is one payment behind has far more room to work out a plan than one who is 90 days behind, and the 579,000 loans in that later stage show how many households have already passed that point.
Is a rising house bill squeezing your mortgage budget?
A foreclosure count is a national number, but the bills behind it are personal: the mortgage payment, the insurance premium and the property tax bill all land on the same household. In Louisiana, where ICE puts 8.70% of mortgages behind or in foreclosure, every dollar trimmed from the other house bills is a dollar left for the mortgage.
Cut Your House Costs is an 11-page guide that includes the home-cost audit worksheet, along with a lower home insurance bill by shopping and asking for every discount and home equity options compared, from a HELOC to a reverse mortgage. It cannot stop a foreclosure or stand in for a call to the servicer; it is the checklist for the bills around the mortgage.
Get the home-cost audit worksheet to find savings on your house bills before the next payment →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
