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Non-foreclosure solutions continued to outpace completed foreclosures by a rate of approximately five to one in April while serious delinquencies continued their steady decline, according to data released on Wednesday by HOPE NOW, an industry-created private sector alliance of mortgage servicers, investors, counselors, and other mortgage market participants.
The number of non-foreclosure solutions, which include loan modifications, short sales, deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure, or other workout plans) completed by the industry totaled 153,000 for April, compared to 32,000 completed foreclosure sales during the month, according to HOPE NOW.
April's total of non-foreclosure solutions represented a slight increase over the monthly average for the first quarter (148,000). April's total of foreclosure sales was unchanged from the Q1 three-month average of 32,000.
"HOPE NOW continues to see declines in overall serious delinquencies each month," HOPE NOW executive director Eric Selk said. "In 2010, at the peak of the housing crisis, there were more than four million families behind on their mortgages. That number has been more than cut in half as the industry continues to provide viable mortgage solutions. Loan mods are outpacing foreclosure sales and total non-foreclosure solutions are outpacing those sales by a five to one margin. As many markets continue to recover, HOPE NOW’s members and partners are focused on the regions that are still plagued by large numbers of delinquent borrowers. We have also shifted our efforts to assisting communities with post-crisis issues such as abandoned properties and blight."
About 44,000 of the non-foreclosure solutions offered in April were of the permanent loan modification variety, according to HOPE NOW, with about 29,000 of those completed through proprietary programs and about 15,000 completed through the government's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Since HOPE NOW began reporting the data in 2007, the number of non-foreclosure solutions offered by the industry is approaching 24 million, with 7.5 million of those coming via permanent loan modification.
Foreclosure starts declined by about 24 percent from March to April (from 78,000 down to 59,000), according to HOPE NOW. The number of seriously delinquent mortgages declined by about 2 percent from 1.81 million down to 1.78 million during that same period.
Click here to see the full data set for April 2015.
