Delinquent mortgages declined late last year.

The Mortgage Bankers Assn. said that the number of homeowners who were at least 30 days late in making a mortgage payment declined to 5.33% of the 10.02 million home loans surveyed during the October-December period. This represented a decline from 5.42% in the July-September quarter and marked the first time in nearly a decade that the delinquency rate has declined for three consecutive quarters. It put mortgage delinquencies at their lowest level since a rate of 5.28% in the first quarter of 1982.