The Wall Street Journal reported today that the percentage of U.S. consumers who are delinquent on their mortgages could be less than 5% by the end of 2011. The delinquency rate is expected to be above 6% by the end of this year.

TransUnion LLC predicts that mortgage delinquencies will decline to 4.98% by the end of this year, compared to 6.21% by the end of this year. The delinquency rate peaked at 6.89% in the fourth quarter of 2009, as lenders tightened underwriting standards, according to the WSJ article. However, TransUnion also said it is seeing an increase in delinquencies 60 or more days overdue on their mortgages, going above 2%.

A decrease in mortgage delinquencies could lift the economy and the real estate market in general. The U.S. Census Bureau recently announced that the unemployment rate inched up to 9.8% and, while pending home sales shot up 10.4% in October, new home sales fell the same month by 8.1% and existing home sales declined by 2.2%

TransUnion also predicts that credit card delinquencies — an important gauge of future losses for lenders — will continue to decline, albeit slightly. Borrowers who are 90 days or more delinquent on one or more of their credit cards is expected to reach 0.75% by the end of this year, but will fall to 0.67% by the end of 2011. Credit card delinquencies are lower than mortgage delinquencies in part because lenders have more ways to control potential losses, such as reducing customers’ lines of credit.