Even though delinquencies have slowed on prime residential mortgage-backed securities, borrowers who get behind on payments are now much likelier to stay behind, Fitch Ratings said this week in a report. Delinquency cure rates on prime loans — the percentage of delinquent loans that are made current in a given month — dropped to 6.6 percent, from an average of 45 percent from 2000 to 2006. The new figure closely compares to

cure rates for less-reliable Alt-A loans — 4.3 percent — and subprimes, 5.3 percent. “Whereas prime had previously been distinct for its relatively high level of delinquency recoveries, by this measure prime is no longer significantly outperforming other sectors,” said Fitch Managing Director Roelof Slump. The figures suggest that borrowers of all types have been hit equally hard by declining home prices. For example, while Florida and California — two states hit hardest by price drops — represented 49 percent of all prime loans in the study’s pool, they accounted for 62 percent of all non-current loans in the study. While often overshadowed by home sales, prices and other key indicators, the delinquency cure rate is another measure of progress in the embattled residential housing markets. At the moment, Slump said, it didn’t bode well for the wider economy. “It will be difficult to argue that the market has stabilized or that performance has improved, until there is a concurrent increase in cure rates,” he said.