The Federal Housing Finance Agency is turning its attention to short sales as part of its “servicing alignment” project.
To date, the GSE regulator has focused attention on loan modifications. "Now, we really want to focus on alternatives to foreclosures, such as short sales," Meg Burns, FHFA's senior associate director for housing and regulatory policy told National Mortgage News.
The goal is to create a streamline short sale process and get Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their servicers to adopt a uniform approach.
The GSEs completed 28,269 short sales in the third quarter and 2,450 deed-in-lieu transactions.
Fannie and Freddie have a large number of nonperforming loans that are "severely aged," Burns said, and "we aren't seeing enough short sales for the situation we are in."
As of September 30 the two GSEs had 1.1 million loans that were 90 days or more past due, or in process of foreclosure.
