TransUnion, one of the three national credit reportingagencies, is reporting that the rate of housing finance borrowersmore than 60 days late on their mortgage loans has dropped for thesecond consecutive month, moving to 5.49% in the secondquarter.

This means the rate has dropped almost 9% in the first sixmonths of this year, the bureau reported.

“While it is a positive sign to see mortgage delinquency ratesdecrease, meaning more and more homeowners were able to make theirmortgage payments, the rate of the decline is still not at a pacethat will push levels significantly closer to pre-recession norms,”said Tim Martin, group vice president of U.S. Housing inTransUnion's financial services business unit.

“The pace of improvement should pick up when we review thirdquarter results, helped by a few months of relatively good news onhome prices, this year's resurgence in refinance activity relatedto HARP 2.0 and record low mortgage interest rates,” Martinsaid.

Between the first and second quarters of 2012, all but fivestates experienced decreases in their mortgage delinquency rates,TransUnion reported. On a more granular level, 76% of metropolitanareas saw improvement in their mortgage delinquency rates in thesecond quarter.

This is up from the previous two quarters when 73% of the MSAsin the first quarter of this year and 36% in the fourth quarter oflast year experienced improvement.

On a year-over-year basis, two of the states most negativelyimpacted by the mortgage crisis – Arizona and California – haveseen the greatest improvement in mortgage delinquencies.

Since the second quarter of 2011, California's mortgagedelinquency rate has dropped nearly 22% to 6.13%, while Arizona'srate declined 21% to 6.14%, TransUnion said. Both states haddouble-digit delinquency levels just two years ago.

As in Arizona and California, many other states have experiencedstabilization in home prices, though unemployment levels continueto remain stubbornly high. Looking at a multitude of economicfactors, TransUnion's forecast predicts mortgage delinquency rateswill maintain their downward trajectory for the remainder of2012.

“The economy has not grown at a robust rate, but it doescontinue to slowly improve and we believe the improvement inmortgage delinquencies will follow a similar pattern,” said Martin.“With steadying home prices, and mortgage interest rates remainingat extremely low levels, it appears that market conditions are setup to allow for further declines in the mortgage delinquencyrate.”