The Federal Housing Finance Agency said on Friday that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae continue to complete thousands of foreclosure prevention actions in each reporting period. The two assisted homeowners with a combined total of 88,800 loan modifications, forbearances, and other assistance. This brings the total to 3.2 million since the two government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) were put in conservatorship in 2008. That total includes 1.6 million loan modifications.
Foreclosure previous actions have helped more than 2.6 million borrowers stay in their homes and another half-million have been helped to exit home ownership without a foreclosure. Those home forfeiture actions include short sales and deeds-in-lieu. FHFA noted that short sales dropped by 26 percent in the first quarter compared to the previous one.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's foreclosure prevention arsenals include the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), a joint effort by FHFA and the Treasury Department, and proprietary programs offered by each of the GSEs. In the first quarter of 2014 there were 10,764 borrowers in active HAMP trials compared to 13,551 in the fourth quarter of 2013. The number of active permanent modifications increased from 431,503 in the fourth quarter to 431,677 in the first.
Since HAMP was initiated in April 2009, there have been 1.1 million trial modifications extended to troubled homeowners and approximately 620,400 of them have been granted permanent HAMP modifications. At the end of the first quarter there were nearly 10,800 homeowners in a HAMP trial.
Non-HAMP modifications however accounted for most of permanent loan modifications in the first quarter, nearly 44,800. Since the housing crisis began, modifications through the GSEs proprietary programs have totaled more than 844,400.
The number of seriously delinquent borrowers with GSE loans decreased 8 percent during the quarter and the serious delinquency rate fell to 2.2 percent compared to 6.7 percent for FHA loans, 3.6 percent for VA loans, and a 5.0 percent industry average.
While the total number of troubled borrowers continued to decline, 31 percent of these borrowers remained deeply delinquent at the end of the first quarter. Florida, New York and New Jersey have the highest number of deeply delinquent loans (365+ days).
Third-party sales and foreclosure sales fell slightly to 47,300 while foreclosure starts decreased 25 percent in the first quarter.
The GSE's inventory of real estate owned (REO) declined by 3 percent in the first quarter as property dispositions outpaced acquisitions 9 percent to 6 percent. REO located in Florida, which comprises a significant portion of the GSEs' inventory, increased by 9 percent during the quarter.
