More late payments represent problems

Sarasota-based investment adviser Raul Elizalde discovered a potentially painful financial nugget while he researched his latest newsletter for clients: Florida is a national leader, behind only Nevada, in the percentage of people who haven't repaid mortgage or credit card debt in at least three months.

The data was taken from the New York Fed's Consumer Credit Panel. It shows that in the last two years the percentage of people three months late on mortgage or credit card debt in Florida has doubled, from less than 10% to more than 20% for a time. At the end of the first quarter of 2010, the figure in Florida was a little less than 18% of people, behind Nevada but well ahead of New York, California and Arizona.

Elizalde, who runs Path Financial, wasn't necessarily surprised Florida fared poorly in the data. But he was thrown off by how bad it really is.

“When looking at mortgage late payments,” says Elizalde, “one has to wonder whether there is another wave of people just hanging by a thread who will eventually default, bringing about another round of foreclosures and pushing any type of real estate price recovery further into the future.”