Washington, D.C.-based NeighborWorks America, one of the nation's largest community development corporations, announced that more than 1.8 million homeowners have received foreclosure prevention counseling through the association's National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program as of July 31, 2014. Distressed homeowners have utilized local nonprofits, national intermediaries, and state housing finance agencies to receive housing counseling through the NFMC Program.
Homeowners participating in housing counseling through NFMC are three times more likely to save money through loan modification and twice as likely to get current on their mortgage payments without a loan modification, according to an analysis of NFMC by the Urban Institute. The UI found in its analysis that homeowners who worked with a housing counselor in the NFMC program to avoid foreclosure with a loan modification saved an average of about $5,000 per year.
The housing market will continue its gradual recovery and gain momentum in 2015, according to the Wells Fargo Economics Group 2015 Economic Outlook released earlier this week. Wells Fargo cited a number of reasons in the report for its optimistic housing market predictions for next year, namely easing of credit, job and income growth, and mortgage rates near their lowest levels in a generation. The economists predict existing home sales, which dropped by 3.8 percent for the first 10 months of 2014, will grow by 4.1 percent in 2015.