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About Kooky and Shaka →American homeowners who pay their property taxes themselves, rather than through their mortgage servicer, are falling behind more often. The trade publication HousingWire reported on Wednesday 7 October 2026 that the delinquency rate on those tax bills has reached 5.2% in 2026 to date, citing the 2026 Property Tax Delinquency Report from Cotality. A year earlier the rate was 4.2%.
That is a rise of one full percentage point in a single year, and it takes the measure to its highest level since 2017, according to the report. It is also a sharp reversal. Sean Graham, senior vice president of servicing and payment solutions at Cotality, is quoted by HousingWire describing a move from the lowest level in the firm's data to the highest since 2017 within a matter of months.
The figure needs its scope stated straight away. It does not describe every homeowner in the United States. It describes one group: borrowers whose mortgage has no escrow account, and who therefore deal with the local tax authority directly.
Cotality 2026 Property Tax Delinquency Report, as reported by HousingWire on 7 October 2026. Non-escrowed mortgages only.
What the report measures
Cotality's study rests on roughly 15 million tax reporting events across 8 million non-escrowed mortgages, HousingWire reports. Those two numbers together mean close to two reporting events for each loan in the sample.
The word "non-escrowed" carries the whole story. On these loans the owner pays the property tax bill directly to the local authority. Nobody collects the money month by month on the owner's behalf, and nobody sends it to the county when the bill falls due. The report follows whether those direct payments arrive on time.
Related readDubai Land Department fees for gifts, heirs, mortgages and long leasesThat makes the data narrower than a national tax delinquency rate, and more useful for one purpose: it isolates the households where the discipline of setting money aside rests entirely with the owner. It says nothing about loans with an escrow account, and nothing about homes owned outright with no mortgage at all. Any reading of the 5.2% that stretches it to "one in twenty American homeowners" goes beyond what the source supports.
The figure for 2026 is also a year-to-date number. HousingWire's account of the report does not give a final annual rate for 2026, because the year is not over. The comparison with 4.2% for 2025 is therefore a part-year figure set against a completed year.
A sharp turn, but still under the long-run average
Two readings of the same number sit side by side in the report, and both are accurate.
The first is the speed of the change. From 4.2% to 5.2% is an increase of one percentage point, and by Mr Graham's description the rate had been at the lowest level in Cotality's data only months before reaching its highest since 2017.
The second is the level. The long-term average in Cotality's series is 5.4%, according to HousingWire. At 5.2%, the 2026 figure remains 0.2 percentage points below that average. In other words, what looks like a spike when set against last year looks closer to a return to normal when set against the full history of the data.
Which reading matters more depends on who is asking. For a mortgage servicer or a county treasurer watching the trend, the direction and the pace are what count. For someone trying to judge whether American homeowners are in unusual trouble with their tax bills, the long-term average is the fairer yardstick, and on that measure the 2026 figure is still below it.
Related readNew York City moves pied-à-terre exemption deadline to 13 OctoberA rate that is the highest since 2017 and still below its own long-run average says as much about how calm 2025 was as about how hard 2026 has become.
Mississippi at the top, North Dakota at the bottom
The national rate hides very large differences between states. The state ranking published in the report, as relayed by HousingWire, runs from 15.1% in Mississippi to 1.4% in North Dakota. The highest rate is more than ten times the lowest.
Mississippi is not a one-year outlier. According to the report, the state has had the highest delinquency rate in 13 of the 14 years since 2012. Behind it come Kansas at 9.6%, New Jersey at 9.5%, Louisiana at 9.0% and Massachusetts at 8.9%.
The bottom five sits in a far narrower band: North Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Illinois and Minnesota, all at 2.3% or below.
| Rank | Highest rates | Lowest rates |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi, 15.1% | North Dakota, 1.4% |
| 2 | Kansas, 9.6% | Wisconsin, 1.5% |
| 3 | New Jersey, 9.5% | Wyoming, 1.6% |
| 4 | Louisiana, 9.0% | Illinois, 2.1% |
| 5 | Massachusetts, 8.9% | Minnesota, 2.3% |
Cotality 2026 Property Tax Delinquency Report, state ranking as reported by HousingWire on 7 October 2026.
For anyone working across state lines, the table is a reminder that a national average is a poor guide to a local market. A lender, a title professional or an investor looking at a home in Mississippi is working in a place where roughly one non-escrowed loan in seven shows a late tax payment. In North Dakota the equivalent is closer to one in seventy.
The states that moved most
The ranking is not fixed from one year to the next. The report picks out the states with the largest changes in both directions, and some of the swings are wide.
Louisiana recorded the largest increase, HousingWire reports: its rate went from 5.8% to 9.0%, a rise of 3.2 percentage points. Alabama rose from 5.2% to 7.1%, up 1.9 points. Kansas, already high, climbed from 8.1% to 9.6%, up 1.5 points.
The falls were larger still. New Mexico dropped from 9.4% to 5.4%, a decline of 4.0 points. Washington, D.C. went from 9.5% to 6.0%, down 3.5 points, and Arizona from 9.2% to 7.2%, down 2.0 points.
Related readNew South Wales transfer duty: 2026-27 rates and first home reliefTwo things stand out. First, the three places with the largest declines all started above 9%, a level that only four states reach in the ranking above, and all three ended well below that mark. A high rate is not a permanent condition. Second, the size of these movements, in both directions, is greater than the one-point change in the national figure. The country-wide rate is an average of states travelling in opposite directions at different speeds.
HousingWire's account of the report does not give the reasons behind individual state movements, and none are offered here.
Lien states, deed states and the jobs question
The report also sorts states by what happens when a tax bill goes unpaid. In states that use tax liens, the delinquency rate averaged 6.1%, according to HousingWire. In states that use a county sale, also called a tax deed sale, the average was 4.5%. The gap between the two systems is 1.6 percentage points.
The report presents this as a difference between two groups of states. It is a comparison of averages, and as relayed by HousingWire it does not claim that one system causes more late payment than the other.
The more surprising finding concerns employment. A natural assumption is that owners miss tax bills where jobs are scarce. The report did not find that. State unemployment showed no meaningful relationship with property tax delinquency, HousingWire reports.
What did move together with late tax payments were two other signs of strain. Delinquency was more closely linked to homeowners association liens, and to mortgages more than 90 days past due. As relayed by HousingWire, that is a statistical link with other unpaid obligations and not with the labour market; the account read for this article does not say whether it was measured home by home or state by state.
Related readSingapore Buyer's Stamp Duty and ABSD: rates for every buyer profileWhy an escrow account matters here
Everything in the report turns on the absence of an escrow account, so it is worth setting out what one does. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explains it in its guidance for borrowers, last reviewed on 11 September 2024.
With an escrow account, sometimes called an impound account, part of each monthly mortgage payment is set aside. The servicer then uses that money to pay the property taxes and the homeowners insurance when they fall due. According to the CFPB, many lenders require such an account, and some states may require one. The bureau also notes that the monthly payment can change from year to year as taxes and insurance premiums change.
Without an escrow account, the owner pays those bills directly. The CFPB is explicit about what can follow if the taxes are not paid.
Unpaid property taxes can end in a lien or a foreclosure
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says that without an escrow account, unpaid property taxes can lead to fines, a tax lien or foreclosure. If the homeowners insurance lapses, the bureau adds, the result can be force-placed insurance, which it describes as more expensive.
This is the link between a statistic in a servicing report and an individual home. A late tax payment is not only a debt to the county. According to the bureau, it can lead to fines, a tax lien or foreclosure. How far a given case goes, and how quickly, depends on the state and the circumstances.
What the figures mean for the trade
For professionals, the report is most useful as a map of where a routine check deserves extra attention.
Closings are the obvious place. A home sold with a mortgage that carried no escrow account is a home where the tax record depends on the seller's own payments. The state table shows how much the odds of finding a late payment vary: 15.1% in Mississippi, 9.5% in New Jersey, 2.1% in Illinois. The report does not describe individual transactions, but the spread between states is wide enough to matter to anyone whose job involves confirming that taxes are up to date before a sale completes.
Servicers have a different interest. The report's finding that late taxes go together with mortgages more than 90 days past due and with homeowners association liens points to a link between late taxes and other arrears. Whether the link holds for the same home is not stated in HousingWire's account.
For buyers arranging a loan, the report is a reason to understand the choice between paying taxes through the servicer and paying them directly, where a lender offers that choice. The CFPB's description is neutral: an escrow account spreads the cost across monthly payments and hands the task to the servicer, while going without one leaves both the saving and the paying to the owner. Neither the bureau nor the report says which suits a given household.
The 2026 figure remains a year-to-date number. HousingWire's report gives no date for a final annual figure, so the one comparison that will settle whether 2026 ends above or below the 5.4% long-term average is not yet available.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
