While there has been a lot of attention paid over the last several years to instances of delinquency, default, and foreclosure nationwide, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Americans have always been able to pay their mortgage bills on time and in full every month. But what's interesting about that is the fact that they continue to chip away at sizable balances overall.

Of course, the size of those average balances can vary pretty widely from one place to the next because such a figure depends on a lot of different factors, according to a report from Business Insider based on the latest data provided to the site by the credit monitoring bureau Experian. However, chief among these seems to be home value. Consequently, the average mortgage balance being carried by American homeowners today is a little more than $157,000, but that number is actually dragged up by just 16 areas above that mark, while 35 states are below it.

The place with the largest mortgage balances in the U.S. are in currently the District of Columbia, where homeowners owe slightly more than $275,000 on average, the report said. Well back of that number, coming in at Nos. 2 and 3, were Hawaii and California, clustered relatively close together at about $258,000 and $253,000, respectively. Maryland, New Jersey, and Massachusetts were the only other states north of $200,000. One will note that the in these places, buyer demand for property is likely to be quite high, which necessarily drives up its average value.

What about the smallest balances?
Meanwhile, in markets where there is less demand, there also tends to be far smaller mortgage debts, the report said. For instance, the average homeowners in four states owe less than $100,000, with West Virginia leading the way at only a little more than $195,000. Mississippi (more than $98,000), Indiana (nearly $99,500), and Arkansas (about $99,750) also made the cut. Rounding out the top five in terms of lowest mortgage debt was Oklahoma, where owners owe an average of $101,651.

There may still be many people carrying significant mortgage debts who could, even now, benefit from refinancing their existing home loans to make them a little more affordable going forward. Those who do so soon, however, are likely to lock in rates that continue to be well below all-time historical averages.