“Trouble during payment process” and “struggling to pay mortgage” were the leading complaints consumers had about mortgages between November 2016 and October 2018, the federal consumer financial protection agency said in a “snapshot” Tuesday – the first such report of the year.
In its “Complaint snapshot: Mortgages,” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said complaints about trouble in payment processes made up 42% of the complaints it received, while the “struggling to pay mortgage” made up 36%. Overall, the agency said, about 11% of the complaints it received over 24-month period were about mortgages.
However, CFPB said, mortgage complaints began trending downward over the last few months of the two-year period. There were 15% fewer mortgage complaints from August 2018 to October 2018 compared to August 2017 to October 2017, the agency said. In October alone, CFPB said, compared to the monthly average of the 24-month period, mortgage complaints were down 18%.
The agency said the Complaint Snapshot uses a three-month rolling average comparing the current average to the same period in the prior year where appropriate to account for monthly fluctuations, including seasonality. “In some cases, this Complaint Snapshot compares the most recent month to the 24-month average to highlight more recent trends,” the agency said.