While the overall number of homeowners delinquent on their mortgages is down, the number who are seriously delinquent has spiked, reported the Washington Post. Data from Black Knight, a mortgage data and technology company, indicated that, in July, the number of mortgage delinquencies dropped by 340,000, or 9 percent compared with the previous month, with the number of newly delinquent homeowners lower than it was even before the pandemic.

At the same time, the number of those considered seriously delinquent, defined as 90 or more days behind on payments, increased by 376,000 in the same time, up by 20 percent compared to June and overall 1.8 million higher than where they were before the pandemic hit. This is the first time in 10 years that serious delinquencies have gotten to this point. This is likely due to persistent unemployment, as states with the highest levels of job losses were also the states with the most serious delinquencies.

Similarly, as businesses are battered by COVID-19's economic effects, commercial mortgage delinquencies are also on the rise, according to Visual Capitalist, reaching average levels not seen since 2012, with retail and accommodation businesses being far above even that. In the former, delinquencies have grown from 3.8 percent in January to 18.1 percent in July; in the latter, the growth has gone from 1.5 percent to 24.3 percent in the same time period.