[1]The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) [2], conservator of Fannie Mae [3] and Freddie Mac [4], reported that the GSEs have completed almost three million home retention actions since the beginning of the conservatorships in September 2008.
The FHFA’s Foreclosure Prevention Report for the Third Quarter of 2015 [5] released Wednesday, the Agency found that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have completed a total of nearly 3.6 million foreclosure prevention actions in the history of the conservatorships as of the end of Q3 2015—and more than 2.9 million of those actions have helped struggling borrowers stay in their homes.
Q3’s total of 54,744 foreclosure prevention actions during Q3 was a dropoff of approximately 9,000 from Q2, but it was still more than the 26,989 third-party sales and foreclosure sales the Enterprises completed during Q3, according to FHFA. As property dispositions continued to outpace property acquisitions, the number of REO properties owned by the GSEs took another substantial downward turn in Q3, from 86,515 in the previous quarter down to 77,204 (11 percent).
[6]Curiously, the number of foreclosure starts increased from Q2 to Q3, from 62,364 up to 66,192, while the number of loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that were 30 to 59 days delinquent also rose in Q3 from 385,982 (1.39 percent of GSE-backed mortgage loans) up to 405,412 (1.46 percent of GSE-backed loans). The FHFA would not comment on any aspect of the report.
Even with the uptick in the number of 30 to 59 day delinquencies, the Enterprises’ share of seriously delinquent mortgages—that is, 90 days or more overdue or in foreclosure—declined quarter-over-quarter in Q3 from 1.61 percent down to 1.52 percent and compared favorably with seriously delinquent mortgage loans owned or guaranteed by other government agencies such as the Federal Housing Administration (5.4 percent) and Veterans Affairs (2.9 percent). The industry-wide average for all mortgage loans was 3.6 percent, according to FHFA.
Click here to view the FHFA’s complete Foreclosure Prevention Report for Q3 2015. [5]