Administration Releases October Housing Scorecard

The take-away from the October edition of the monthly housing scorecard issued by the Obama Administration on Monday is that, nine months after the first Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) modifications become permanent, over 80 percent of the affected homeowners continue to perform under the new terms.

To date 568,100 homeowners have converted from trial to permanent modifications and the rate of conversions increased during the last reporting period from 39,200 to 56,400 as HAMP administrators continued to work with servicers to streamline program requirements, clean out persistent programmatic bugs, and better train servicer staff.

Since the September scorecard was issued 35,300 borrowers have entered into trial modifications which brings the total to 1,369,400 since the program's inception in the spring of 2009.

The scorecard is a round-up of a number of regular reports compiled by others such as S&P/Case Schiller, CoreLogic, and RealtyTrac.  While it lacks timeliness, it does provide a one-stop summary of what is going on in the housing market.

As previously reported here, early stage foreclosure activity continues to increase, with 102,400 Notices of Default filed during September compared to 96,500 in August.  First notices of foreclosure sale were down slightly to 142,900 from 147,000 while foreclosures were completed on 102,100 housing units compared to 95,400 the previous month.  Foreclosure figures are taken from RealtyTrac reports.  

While the foreclosure picture is still grim, the scorecard editors stress that the number of homeowners helped by various mitigation and restructuring programs is nearly triple the completed foreclosures during the April 2009 to August 2010 period.

Mortgage delinquencies have remained stable with over 4.28 million borrowers seriously delinquent on their mortgages.  The delinquency rate for Prime mortgages was unchanged from the previous month at 5.2 percent and the subprime rate inched up from 36.2 to 36.4 percent.  The FHA rate slipped one basis point to 12.4 percent.

"Over the last 21 months, the Obama Administration's swift action in the housing market has kept millions of families in their homes and provided responsible borrowers with incentives to refinance or to become a homeowner," said HUD Assistant Secretary Raphael Bostic. "But, with many unavoidable foreclosures still in the pipeline, it's clear that we have a hard road ahead. That's why we're focused on successfully implementing the programs we've put in place - such as additional assistance on refinancing and helping unemployed homeowners stay in their homes - and ensuring that help is available to homeowners as soon as possible." 

Over 64,000 FHA purchase mortgage originations were completed during the current reporting period compared to 67.2 in the previous month and FHA refinancing decreased from 51,700 to 47,400. Virtually all of the purchase mortgages were given to first time home buyers. Information on other mortgages is compiled quarterly by the Mortgage Bankers Association and was reported previously.

The report says that the impact of recent new and expanded resources is expected to contribute to progress in future scorecards.  For example, in July FHA announced a short refinance option targeted at underwater borrowers.  Those who are current on their existing mortgage and whose lenders agree to write off at least 10 percent of the unpaid principal balance will be offered the opportunity to qualify for a new FHA-insured loan.

Below is a summary of specific housing assitanceprograms and other performance metrics. More charts and useful graphics can be found HERE