[1]Fannie Mae [2] and Freddie Mac [3] prevented nearly 80,000 foreclosures nationwide in the second quarter, raising the total number of foreclosures prevented since the start of the conservatorship in September 2008 to 3.3 million, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA [4]) indicated in its report on foreclosure prevention [5] for Q2 2014 released on September 24.
The measures taken by the two GSEs to prevent foreclosures have helped about 2.7 million borrowers remain in their homes in the last six years, with approximately 1.7 million of those borrowers receiving permanent loan modifications. The number of foreclosures prevented is down 10 percent from Q1, when GSE measures stopped almost 89,000 foreclosures.
The number of delinquent loans more than 60 days past due declined 5 percent quarter-over-quarter, according to FHFA. As of the end of Q2 (end of June 2014), there were approximately 688,000 such loans, the lowest level since the conservatorship began six years ago. The number of seriously delinquent loans (more than 90 days past due or in foreclosure) fell 2.1 percent at the end of the quarter.
Close to 49,000 borrowers received permanent loan modifications in Q1, down nearly 11 percent from 55,000 in Q1. However, FHFA reports that about 37 percent of those who received permanent loan modifications were able to reduce their monthly payments by more than 30 percent in Q2.
The number of short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure for Q2 totaled approximately 14,500, down slightly from the 14,900 completed during Q1. The total amount of short sales and deeds-in-lieu since the conservatorship began stood at 581,400 at the end of Q2.
REO (bank owned) inventory declined by 10 percent for Q2, from about 145,900 down to 131,500, according to FHFA. Meanwhile, third-party sales and foreclosure sales also dropped by 10 percent from Q1 to Q2, down to 42,800. Foreclosure starts ticked slightly upward for Q2, from 84,700 to 85,500.