[1]Fannie Mae [2] and Freddie Mac [3] combined to complete 65,960 foreclosure prevention actions in Q1 this year, bringing the total of such actions up to almost 3. 5 million between the two GSEs since September 2008 when the conservatorships began, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA [4])'s Q1 2015 Foreclosure Prevention Report [5] released on Tuesday.
Out of those 3.5 million foreclosure prevention actions in nearly seven years, 2.9 million borrowers completed home retention actions that helped them stay in their homes. About 1.8 million of those borrowers received permanent loan modifications, according to FHFA. Borrowers completed 41,321 permanent loan modifications in Q1, a slight increase from 40,922 in Q4. Approximately 31 percent of borrowers receiving permanent loan modifications in Q1 saw their monthly mortgage payments reduced by 30 percent or more. FHFA reported that as of the end of the first quarter, approximately 17 percent of loans modified in the first quarter of 2014 had missed two or more payments.
Of those nearly 66,000 foreclosure prevention actions completed during Q1, 56,451 of them were home retention actions (loan modifications, repayment plans, forbearance plans, or charge-offs-in-lieu). According to FHFA, 9,509 of those Q1 foreclosure prevention actions were home forfeiture actions (short sales or deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure).
The number of residential mortgage loans that are 60 days or more delinquent declined by 9 percent during Q1 as the serious delinquency rate for loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dropped to 1.8 percent by the end of the first quarter, according to FHFA. By comparison with other Agency-backed loans, the serious delinquency rate for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was 5.7 percent; for Veterans Affairs (VA) loans, it was 3.2 percent; and the industry average for all loans was 4.2 percent.
Third-party sales, foreclosure sales, and foreclosure starts all declined during Q1, according to FHFA. Third-party sales and foreclosure sales totaled 34,873 during the quarter, representing a decline of 4 percent from the previous quarter. Foreclosure starts totaled 70,267 for the first quarter, a decline of about 5 percent from Q4. Property dispositions continued to outpace property acquisitions, REO inventory for both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac decreased by about 10 percent during the quarter down to 100,279, according to FHFA.
Click here [5] to see the FHFA's entire foreclosure prevention report for Q1 2015.