Since the Federal Housing Finance Agency became the conservator of the government-sponsored enterprises in the fourth quarter of 2008, nearly 2.3 million foreclosure prevention actions have taken place through the first quarter of this year by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
According to the FHFA’s quarterly foreclosure prevention report, more than 1.1 million permanent loan modifications have been completed in less than four years. There has also been an additional 777,400 actions that resulted in a distressed homeowner not losing their property to foreclosure. The FHFA said 339,000 of the actions were short sales and deeds-in-lieus, which resulted in borrowers leaving their homes without going through the foreclosure process.
Through the first three months of this year, the enterprises completed approximately 146,100 foreclosureprevention actions, including 60,300 permanent loan modifications. But this is down by nearly 11,000 from the prior quarter.
In addition, about 44,600 repayment plans and 6,200 forbearance plans were finalized to help delinquent borrowers cure their mortgage payments during the quarter.
The FHFA said that half of all borrowers who received loan modifications in the first quarter had their monthly payments reduced by over 30%, and one-third included principal forbearance. Additionally, less than 15% of the borrowers who had their loans modified nine months ago missed two or more payments.
The report also showed that third-party and foreclosure sales decreased slightly, while foreclosure starts increased for the first time since the third quarter of 2010. There were more than 226,000 foreclosure starts on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans by mortgage servicers in the first three months of 2012, which is 8,000 more than the prior quarter but down substantially from the all-time high of 339,000 experienced two years ago.
Meanwhile, completed sales went down quarter-over-quarter with approximately 79,000 foreclosed properties sold through March 2012, compared to 80,000 the final three months of last year.
As of March 31, the enterprises’ REO inventory declined as property dispositions increased and acquisitions decreased. The inventory through the first quarter is now at 173,000, compared to 179,000 in the prior quarter.
California has the most GSE bank-owned homes with 17,000, followed by Florida with 15,000, Arizona has 5,000 and there are 3,000 in Nevada. Further, there are 47,000 properties in the Midwest, with the majority located in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, while the remaining states have 86,000 REO homes owned by the enterprises.
At the end of the first quarter, more than half of the 1 million serious delinquent borrowers have missed more than one year of mortgage payments. In Florida, there are over 162,000 loans that have been delinquent for at least a year. According to the report, this figure exceeds the total number of loans late in payment by 90 or more days in every other state except California.
Behind Florida, other states that had the most single-family one-year delinquent mortgages were New Jersey, Georgia, New York and Maine.
