Fed Reserve Bank of Dallas President: Fed may need to raise interest rates this year

Louisiana and Mississippi are currently in the top 5 in the nation in delinquent mortgages, car notes, and credit cards.

Rates going up again will make things really interesting in the south


FYI, Texas isn't immune. They just have a faster foreclosure process, so their numbers are never as bad as in LA but Texas is up there in REO properties, which are properties that have already gone through the foreclosure process and are now for sale by the bank or HUD


Texas average foreclosure timeline is 180–210 days
Louisiana: 3,100–3,600 days, or roughly 8.5–10 years....yes, you read that correctly
MS: 270 days

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Among the states where mortgage loan delinquency is rising the fastest, Louisiana comes in third. Delinquent mortgages increased by more than 4% in Louisiana between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, the third-largest increase nationwide. In comparison to other states, Louisiana has the second-highest delinquency rate (14.3%), showing that homeowners are experiencing increasing financial difficulty.

Interestingly, Louisiana leads the nation in the percentage of persons with credit accounts in distress—that is, those who have been permitted to postpone payments because of financial difficulties—in addition to experiencing a significant rise in mortgage delinquency recently. This demonstrates that locals are struggling to pay off a variety of debts.

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Mortgage Delinquencies Climb in Multiple States as Homeowners Struggle to Keep Up


BTW, based on what I see in my business, Lake Charles is the only city really bucking the trend. I am sure that is mostly due to the LNG boom here.


Mississippi is in double digits delinquency rates but actually had a drop in the rate from 2025 to 2026. A nearly 4.27% change and still being in double-digit delinquency is nuts

3.8% inflation …

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Fed Reserve Bank of Dallas President: Fed may need to raise interest rates this year

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Louisiana and Mississippi are currently in the top 5 in the nation in delinquent mortgages, car notes, and credit cards.

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all the folks who saw those 2% interest rates and thought they could afford a $750k-$1M house in 2021/2022 realizing they can't make ends meet since their insurance and property taxes have doubled.... not to mention the Mrs. just had to get the Denali and not the SLT...

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That’s stunning. Had no idea. How does that happen?

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A combination of Napoleonic law and a horribly backlogged system


But other states have very long timelines, too

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States with the longest average foreclosure timelines for homes foreclosed in Q2 2025 were Louisiana (3,612 days); Hawaii (2,746 days); Nevada (1,974 days); New York (1,927 days); and Connecticut (1,874 days).

States with the shortest average foreclosure timelines for homes foreclosed in Q2 2025 were Wyoming (125 days); Texas (135 days); New Hampshire (149 days); Montana (154 days); and Minnesota (162 days).

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LINK

Rueters

Literally no one cares about the rules anymore. Also I can't visit image sharing cites from my PC so the reuters like will have to do

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If inflation continues to be persistent,

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It will because math.

Inflation is the lowering of currency value due to the over-printing of currency (we see this as "prices rising" when it's really "value of Dollar lowering"). The common parlance is "too many Dollars chasing too few goods".

Since the GFC (2008), we've had far more years where the deficit has grown larger than the YoY growth of GDP (there have been only 5 years where GDP grew more, and one of those (2022) is a bit of a cheat because a lot of it was carryover from COVID spending an consumer forebearances). From 1970-2007 there was only one year when the deficit grew more than GDP (1991, if memory serves).

2008...--..-...79...--...--..459
2009...---...292...---...1,413
2010...---...571...---...1,294
2011...---...551...---...1,300
2012...---...654...---...1,077
2013...---...627...--...-...680
2014...---...727...--...-...485
2015...---...687...--..--...442
2016...---...510...--...-...585
2017...---...807...-...--...665
2018...-..1,045...--...-...779
2019...---...883...--...-...984
2020...---...186...---...3,132
2021...--..2,327...---..2,775
2022...-...2,326...--...1,376
2023...--..1,714...--...1,695
2024...-...2,109...---..1,830
2025...-...1,590...--...1,780

You can look at that as the marginal utility of deficit dollars (my rudimentary version of ICOR).

This means the economy has become so dependent on continued high levels of deficit spending that even with the ~$1T+ deficits we've had since COVID we have had years where GPD doesn't increase as much. The other way of saying this is that the more we cut deficit spending, the more we risk a recession.

So, we can have inflation or we can have a recession, that's it. Voters should remember that (but won't) the next time they vote for someone who is "going to make government work for you" (read: increase spending on programs and/or create new programs).

We're not in "the shite" yet, but keep an eye on credit cards and other loans, vehicle repossessions (spreadsheet from Cox Automotive), bankruptcy filings and home foreclosures (roughly in that order).

Credit cards have already increased beyond pre-COVID levels. While it's not "skyrocketing," the increase seems to be continuing.
For vehicle repos, we've seen not only the amount grow every year (since the low of 2021), but a consistent growth in the default rate as well.
Bankruptcies are still near the historic lows of COVID, but they have been consistently growing since 2022 and nearing pre-COVID levels. Since 2022 the increases have been double-digit percentages year-over-year (this is the total number, combining personal and business).
Home foreclosures have grown above their historic lows during COVID but it's still very low AND it's a very lagging indicator.

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Louisiana (3,612 days

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are these people still living in the house while under foreclosure?

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are these people still living in the house while under foreclosure?

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Not usually, but it has happened. We have done evictions where the people had been in the house years past their delinquency date.

They usually move out due to pressure from the bank. Banks send what they call "mortgage inspectors" to the property, trying to get in touch with them. Most move out within a few months to a year, based on what I see. Although that is changing because a mortgage inspector was shot a few months ago in Virginia so now it's mostly mailbox notices instead of door hangers.

Then companies like mine inherit it and maintain it while the legal process takes place. We will literally work on the same house, which includes large repairs to something as simple as yard maintenance, for years to keep it from becoming a blight. If a loan is HUD-backed, the bank has to maintain it and get it to conveyance condition once the process is complete; otherwise, the bank will not get reimbursed for it.

Most banks in LA try to avoid conventional loans if they can. They all want that assurance from HUD

Years ago, Wells Fargo was sued for not maintaining foreclosures in hoods and was fined a ton of money. Most of those loans were conventional, where they would literally lose money maintaining them with no shot at redemption through selling it REO.

Sometimes houses are so tied up in legal issues that they don't fall into maintenance at all. Those are when you hear the term zombie houses.