Geographic Patterns of Serious Mortgage Delinquency: Cross-MSA Comparisons

Lariece M. Brown, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Hui-Chin Chen, Melissa T. Narragon, Freddie Mac

Paul S. Calem, Federal Reserve System

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Federal Reserve Board, or Freddie Mac.

This article examines the distribution of impaired mortgages across neighborhoods, defined at the ZIP Code level, in 91 metropolitan areas as of the fourth quarter of 2008, well into the recent U.S. mortgage crisis. We catalogue serious mortgage delinquency patterns by metropolitan area based on features of the geographic distribution, including measures of dispersion across neighborhoods and of spatial autocorrelation. The findings are potentially informative for assessing local and neighborhood consequences of the mortgage crisis and for selecting and implementing strategies to ameliorate the effects of foreclosure.