Hope Now Aids Almost 170,000 in Month

Hope Now servicers helped nearly 170,000 at-risk borrowers stay in their homes in May, but they could not keep up with the record pace of workouts (185,000) completed in April. Nevertheless, Hope Now executive director Faith Schwartz says the pace of workouts is accelerating and the second quarter tally will exceed first quarter workouts. The second quarter results are going to "blow away" the first quarter, said Hope Now advisor Stan Collender. The May data shows that the servicers completed 67,300 loan modifications for prime and subprime borrowers in May, compared to 77,400 in April. Hope Now also reported that 83,000 families lost their homes in foreclosures in May. The Center for Responsible Lending claims that the Hope Now initiative is failing to keep up with the accelerating foreclosure crisis. "Delinquencies and foreclosures keep going up and tens of thousands of loans 'fixed' voluntarily by the industry have already gone bad," CRL executive director Debbie Goldstein said.