Mortgage delinquencies dropped in March to the lowest level in 10 years, according to the Loan Performance Insights Report for CoreLogic, a property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider.

Mortgages in some stage of delinquencies, including those 30 days or more past due to those in foreclosure, dropped from last year’s 5.2% to 4.4% in March, the lowest rate in 10 years.

“Dropping delinquency and foreclosure rates reflect the beneficial impact of stringent post-crisis underwriting standards as well as better fundamentals such as higher employment, household formation and home price gains,” CoreLogic President and CEO Frank Martell said. “Looking ahead, we expect these positive trends to continue as the industry shifts its focus toward solving supply shortages and looming affordability crises in an increasing number of markets.”

In March, the foreclosure inventory rate, which measures the share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process, decreased to 0.8% in March compared to 1% last year. The serious delinquency rate, mortgages 90 days or more past due including loans in foreclosure, dropped 0.6 percentage points to 2.1% in March.

In order to measure the health of the mortgage market, CoreLogic looked at early-stage delinquency rates. Early-stage delinquencies, defined as 30 to 59 days past due, dropped to 1.7% in March, down from 1.9% last year.

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(Source: CoreLogic)

“Early-stage mortgage performance continues to improve at a steady pace, especially for 30 to 59-day delinquencies which fell to 1.7%, the lowest rate for any month since January 2000,” CoreLogic Chief Economist Frank Nothaft said. “Late-stage serious delinquency rates continue to decline, falling to their lowest levels since November 2007.”