People pay car loans and credit cards before mortgages

While people used to always pay their mortgage first before other bills, priorities have definitely changed for some. Maintaining car payments appears to be the first priority, with credit cards second and mortgages last. That's the results of the third quarter trend data from TransUnion. The 60-day delinquency national average for auto loans was 0.81%. Credit cards national 90-day delinquency average was just a bit higher at 1.10%. Mortgages national 60-day delinquency rate was six times higher at 6.25%

F.J. Guarrera, VP of Sales Strategy/Thought Leadership for TransUnion concluded about the mortgage numbers: "Delinquency rates are rising and expected to peak at record levels. Until the housing market can consistently demonstrate several months of home value appreciation and the unemployment rate improves, mortgage delinquencies will likely continue to rise."

The people of North Dakota are the most reliable payers. Their delinquencies rates were just 0.35% on auto loans, 0.66% on credit cards and 1.74% on mortgages. So even the most reliable payers are putting autos first, credit cards second and mortgages last on the priority list.

The hardest hit state for delinquencies was Nevada. It's auto loan delinquency rate was 1.16%, it's credit card delinquency rate was 1.98% and its mortgage delinquency rate was 14.53%. Florida residents were next in line for the worst records with a mortgage delinquency rate of 13.34%, but their auto loan defaults were just 0.99% and their credit card delinquencies were just 1.47%