My gut was telling me that gloom-and-doom days are ahead, so as I prepared for this post, I thought I would turn to one of my favorite sources of economic data, the St. Louis Federal Reserve, for their data. What I found regarding mortgage delinquency was not as bad as I thought. Check out this chart. I fully expected a trajectory that was more “upward” than this. That being said, they don’t say I’m “Dougie Downer” for nothing, so we’ll still err on the side of caution and focus on mitigating downside risk as opposed to swinging for the fences. We’ll remain conservative by not overstretching on our LTVs. We’ll continue to insist on being able to identify both a primary and secondary source of repayment instead of relying on collateral liquidation for the payback on loans. We’ll continue to ensure that borrower character is a huge factor in our loan decisions. I still think delinquency is heading North, but I would have expected this chart to show more “bad stuff”. Just thought this was a good topic for discussion.