Idaho, Washington, Montana, California and Oregon had the smallest shares of mortgages that were behind on payments or in foreclosure in September, according to ICE’s September First Look report, released Oct. 27. Idaho was lowest at 2.10%, followed by Washington at 2.26%, Montana at 2.28%, California at 2.39% and Oregon at 2.51%.
All five are Western states, and all five sit far below the 8.70% ICE reported in Louisiana, the highest in the country. For homeowners there, the question shifts from whether the loan is in trouble to what else the house costs and what its owner can do with it.
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How far apart are the safest and riskiest states?
Very far. Louisiana’s rate is more than four times Idaho’s. Put another way, about one mortgage in 48 in Idaho was behind or in foreclosure, while in Louisiana the figure was more than one in 12.
The gap shows up even between the edges of the two lists. Oregon, the fifth-lowest at 2.51%, is far below Arkansas, the fifth-highest at 6.07%. The other states in ICE’s top five are Mississippi at 8.61%, Indiana at 6.49% and Alabama at 6.45%.
Within the safest group the spread is narrow. From Idaho’s 2.10% to Oregon’s 2.51% is only 0.41 percentage point, and Washington and Montana are separated by two hundredths of a point, 2.26% to 2.28%.
One comparison shows the scale. In Mississippi, loans 90 or more days past due alone were 2.50% of mortgages, higher than the entire non-current rate in Idaho, Washington, Montana and California. Louisiana’s 90-day share of 2.38% also tops the full rates in Idaho, Washington and Montana.
What does the rate actually count?
ICE calls the measure the non-current rate. It adds loans that are delinquent to loans already in the foreclosure process, so a borrower one payment behind counts the same as one whose home is headed to a foreclosure sale.
That makes it a broad gauge of stress rather than a count of lost homes. ICE publishes a second state table for loans 90 or more days past due, and none of the five Western states appears among that table’s highest five, which are Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Indiana and Arkansas.
A servicer is the company that collects a borrower’s monthly payment. ICE posts its monthly First Look and a separate Mortgage Monitor on its data reports page, where the September report is listed as the current one.
The report’s own headline theme is that delinquencies are tracking seasonal norms while the foreclosure pipeline shifts toward recent vintages. ICE says loans made in 2022 or later were 43% of September’s foreclosure starts, a share that says more about when loans were written than about where the homes are.
Does a low rate mean nobody nearby is behind?
No. A 2.10% rate still leaves roughly one in every 48 Idaho mortgages behind or in foreclosure, and the same logic holds in Washington, Montana, California and Oregon. A low rate lowers the odds that a neighbor is struggling without erasing them.
The national backdrop is also less settled than the Western numbers suggest. ICE’s national tally showed 2,027,000 loans 30 or more days past due in September, with about 579,000 of them 90 or more days behind. Foreclosure starts were about 40,000, completed foreclosure sales ran about 8,200, up 14.5% from a year earlier, and the foreclosure inventory stood at roughly 303,000 properties.
ICE’s separate national delinquency rate, which is a different measure from the state non-current rate, came in at 3.66%. That was up 12 basis points from August and 34 basis points below September 2019, and ICE describes the monthly move as in line with its seasonal norm.
Serious delinquencies, the loans furthest behind, were 21% higher than a year earlier but 5% below their February peak. ICE put the serious share at 1.04% of loans, close to the 1.06% September average from 2017 through 2019.
What does a clean mortgage record leave out?
Mortgage performance measures one thing: whether the loan payment arrives. It says nothing about the property tax bill, the home insurance premium or the repairs that arrive on their own schedule, which are the costs that most often change what a house takes out of a monthly budget.
Bob Hart, president of mortgage technology at ICE, framed the September report around early outreach, saying servicers need to reach homeowners early to help keep them in their homes. The same advice runs the other way for owners, since a borrower who raises a problem early has more options than one who waits.
For owners in Idaho, Washington, Montana, California and Oregon, the report is mostly reassuring news about the loan itself. What it does not address is the rest of the household’s housing costs, or what a homeowner with years of payments behind them might do with the property later.
Thinking about borrowing against your house or selling it?
A steady mortgage record does not shrink the other bills a house generates, and it does not answer what an owner should do with the home itself, whether that is borrowing against it or selling it. Those choices carry their own costs and tax rules, and they are easy to compare badly.
Cut Your House Costs is an 11-page guide that includes home equity options compared, from a HELOC to a reverse mortgage. It also covers selling without the tax, up to $250,000 of profit or $500,000 for a couple, and a worksheet that audits what the house costs each year.
Compare a HELOC and a reverse mortgage side by side with the home equity guide →
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.
