Originally published by SacBee.com on Aug. 15, 2018

Sacramento residents have something to be proud of when it comes to paying bills on time, according to a recent study by online loan marketplace Lending Tree, ranking third out of 100 of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.

Of 9 million MyLendingTree users studied, cities were ranked based on the number of residents with at least one overdue account on their TransUnion credit report following the first quarter of 2018, according to Lending Tree.

Late bill payments can remain on credit reports for up to seven years and can negatively impact a person’s ability to borrow money in the future, Lending Tree said.

Sacramento’s No. 3 ranking is attributed to 6.16 percent of users that had at least one overdue account. Ninety-six percent of Sacramento residents in the data were current on their credit card or loan bills. On average, during the period studied, Sacramento residents made 5 late payments and an average of 2.2 payments were 90 days late.

Sacramento ranks below San Francisco at No. 2 and Provo, Utah at No. 1, but it’s a pretty close race. San Francisco had 6.07 percent of residents with at least one overdue account and Provo had 5.97 percent.

Other California cities in the top 10 included San Jose (No. 7) and Los Angeles (No. 9). Though San Jose’s percentage of users with overdue accounts (6.42) placed it seventh, the city’s average number of users who were current on their bills was the highest in the study at 96.8 percent and its borrowers had the fewest average late payments with just 4.6.

Fluctuations in percentages from the top of the list to the bottom weren’t dramatic. Winston-Salem, North Carolina, took the bottom spot with 9.53 percent of people having at least one overdue account, a difference of 3.37 percent versus Sacramento. At 94.3 percent for people who were current on their bills, Winston-Salem trailed behind Sacramento by just 1.7 percent.

There were no California cities ranked in the bottom 10 spots.

Overall, approximately 95 percent of borrowers represented in the study pay their bills on time. The study also showed that within the period shown on the credit reports pulled, the MyLendingTree users had an average of six late payments.

People west of the Rocky Mountains, including in the four California cities, were the most likely to pay bills on time with nine of the spots in the top 10, according to the study.