Tag Archives: HAMP

While the housing market made great strides toward recovery last year with improvements in foreclosures, home prices, and homeowner equity, the economy is “still healing” from the effects of the recent downturn, according to the latest Housing Scorecard from the Obama administration. Released Friday, the January report found several improving indicators and particular strength in the San Francisco metro area, which has benefited from significant government support.

An estimated 44,000 homeowners received permanent loan modifications from mortgage servicers during the month of November under both proprietary servicer programs and the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), HOPE NOW reports. While that total represents a 12 percent decrease from the 50,000 loan mods completed in October, the most recent data show a steeper 20 percent decline in foreclosure sales and a 17 percent decline in foreclosure starts between October and November.

With fewer properties entering the foreclosure process and more delinquent borrowers avoiding foreclosure, the number of foreclosed single-family homes held by lenders and government agencies has rapidly declined. In the April issue of DS News magazine, contributing writer Keith Button explored the many market drivers taking their toll on the once-strong stock of bank-owned homes.

The servicer assessment component of the Making Home Affordable (MHA) program has been enhanced with new compliance metrics and benchmarks to measure the impact of servicer performance on the borrower's experience. Individual servicer assessments are conducted quarterly to identify areas of non-compliance and drive improvements in servicers' execution of the federal program.

Collaboration between the private and public sectors has resulted in 8 million non-foreclosure solutions completed for at-risk families since 2007, according to HOPE NOW, a voluntary alliance of mortgage servicers, investors, mortgage insurers, and nonprofit housing counselors. Over the last six years, the mortgage industry has completed more than 6.71 million total permanent loan modifications, while short sales total approximately 1.39 million since December 2009.

While home prices have risen 14 percent nationally since their trough a few years ago, Fitch Ratings points out that loss severities on residential mortgage-backed securities have only 5 percent over the past year. The slow rate of improvement is primarily the result of prolonged liquidation timelines which hit an all-time high in the third quarter. Currently, 32 percent of seriously delinquent homeowners have not made a payment in more than four years.

As of September, more than 1.2 million homeowners have received a permanent modification through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Homeowners currently in permanent HAMP mods have been granted an estimated $12.1 billion in reduced principal, Treasury reports. In fact, officials say of all non-GSE loans eligible for principal reduction entering HAMP in September, 72 percent included a principal reduction feature.

Over the life of the government's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), 1.25 million homeowners have received permanent HAMP modifications, and 27 percent of those have later redefaulted on their loans, according to a quarterly report to Congress from the TARP special inspector general. The inspector general expressed concern as far back as April that HAMP redefaults were ""increasing at an alarming rate.""

Sen. Mark R. Warner is seeing tremendous momentum toward GSE reform in Congress, he said during a discussion with Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries this week. He also expressed his optimism that the Housing Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013, a bill he helped co-sponsor, actually has a chance of passing.

More than 11,000 borrowers are currently in the midst of trial mortgage loan modifications through Fannie Mae's Streamlined Modification program, which officially rolled out at the start of July, and an additional 30,000 borrowers pre-qualified for the program, according to a blog post last week by Bill Cleary, VP of credit portfolio strategies. The new program allows any homeowner 90 or more days delinquent on their first-lien mortgage to receive a trial loan modification if the loan-to-value ratio is 80 percent or higher.