Based on September survey data, the mortgage industry completed close to 150,000 permanent loan modifications for the month, according to HOPE NOW.
The reported data for September shows that mortgage servicers completed approximately 120,000 proprietary loan modifications for homeowners and 27,840 Home Affordable Modification Program modifications for an estimated total of 147,000.
The total number of loan modifications with principal and interest payment reductions declined slightly for the month (93,000 compared to 105,000 in August), but 78% of the total proprietary modifications completed in September provide a reduced monthly payment for homeowners.
For the month, there were 66,000 loan modifications with P&I reductions of more than 10% (55% of the total). There were 98,000 loan modifications with a fixed rate period of 5 years or more (82% of the total).
Sixty plus days delinquencies remained flat - 3.2 million in both August and September. Foreclosure starts increased slightly from 245,000 in August to 250,000 in September, and completed foreclosure sales increased from 102,000 to 120,000.
“The most important thing to take away from September’s data is that we now have good metrics on the sustainability of proprietary loan modifications being done by our servicer members,” said Faith Schwartz, senior adviser for HOPE NOW.
