Falling foreclosures are the result of heroic homeowners who have spent the past five years deleveraging, or paying down personal debts, says economics reporter Jon Hilsenrath with The Wall Street Journal.

CBS This Morning caught up with Hilsenrath to learn more about this deleveraging trend.

The news agency pulled the following excerpt from the interview:

“Americans have done something heroic, really, in the last five years,” Hilsenrath said. “Faced with all of this debt after the housing boom, they’ve made a lot of progress on paying it down. Almost one-eighth of the household consumer debt got basically paid down.”