One in every 7.5 homeowners either fell into delinquency or foreclosure as of November 30, 2009, according to the December mortgage monitor report from Lender Processing Services (LPS). The total amount of delinquencies reached a record high 9.97%, a 5.46% increase from the previous month and a 21.29% increase from November 2008. In a sign that homeowners continue their struggle to meet their monthly mortgage payments, loans falling into more severe delinquent categories reached 5.01% through November, compared to 1.52% of loans improved toward a current status. Compare that to November’s mortgage monitor report, when 4.02% of current mortgages through December 2008 fell into delinquency by October 2009. More than 4% of the loans that were current in December 2008, fell behind by 60 days or more, including foreclosure, by the end of November 2009. It’s the highest rate for that part of the year since LPS began reporting the data. The foreclosure inventory continues to stack-up as the foreclosure rate in November reached 3.19%, a 1.46% increase from the previous month and an 81.41% increase from November 2008. This doesn’t include the amount of homes falling into the shadow inventory of foreclosure. Some data providers like First American CoreLogic speculate that number could be as high as 1.7m as the roadblocks of the government incentive programs and moratoriums clog the foreclosure pipeline. “Foreclosure starts continued to decline as a result of loss mitigation efforts like the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) and elevated delinquent loan volumes,” according to the report. “The reduction in foreclosure starts, combined with the steady increase in the number of seriously delinquent loans, has resulted in an ever-growing ‘shadow’ inventory of troubled properties.” The states with the most non-current loans were Florida, Nevada and Mississippi. Those with the fewest were North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska. Write to Jon Prior. The author held no relevant investments when this story was published.