Mortgage default rates for FHA and VA loans followed seasonal trends and shifted significantly lower in the first quarter of 2017, according to a new analysis and servicer ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. While both portfolios showed strong growth in the dollar volume of loans outstanding in Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities, there were also huge declines in the number of loans past due. Some $1.036 trillion of FHA forward mortgages were in Ginnie pools at the end of March, up 1.1 percent from the previous quarter. But delinquency rates for the less-severe categories of late payment were down sharply. The number of FHA loans 30-60 days past due, for example, declined by 28.4 percent, lowering the delinquency rate by 1.51 percentage points, leaving it just about where it was a year ago. The same thing happened in the VA sector. Total VA supply grew 3.2 percent to ... [Charts]