HOPE NOW Retention Actions Exceed Foreclosures by 25 percent

HOPE NOW member servicers completed 67,000 loan modifications in August. There were 63,000 modifications completed in July so the August figures represented an 8 percent increase.  There were also an estimated 23,000 short sales concluded during the month.

The voluntary alliance of private sector mortgage servicers, investors, and non-profit housing and loan counselors have modified 580,000 delinquent mortgages thus far in 2013 compared to 438,000 loans which have been foreclosed.  The modifications include both an estimated 48,000 that were done through proprietary programs and 19,069 completed through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) run by the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Treasury.

Since HOPE NOW was founded in 2007 approximately 5.4 million homeowners have received proprietary loan modifications and another 1,255,751 have had loans modified through HAMP since that program originated in 2009.  Including the 1.36 million short sales, which were first tracked in 2009, there have been over 8 million permanent non-foreclosure solutions provided to borrowers by the alliance.

Foreclosure sales and starts were essentially unchanged from July to August at about 59,000 sales and 101,000 starts. Delinquencies declined by about 2.5 percent from the 2.24 million loans reported to be 60 or more days past due in July to 2.18 million.

HOPE NOW says that modifications done through proprietary programs in August continue have sustainable characteristics; 88 percent have fixed rates for five years or more and 82 percent of the modifications reduced monthly mortgage payments.  Seventy-one percent of the August modifications reduced principal and interest payments by more than 10 percent.