Tag Archives: HAMP

Newly initiated foreclosures are on the decline, reaching their lowest numbers since December 2005 in June, according to the latest Housing Scorecard from the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the administration continues to add to the tally of homeowners helped through its Making Home Affordable Program, bringing the total to more than 1.7 million as of June. Looking forward, the administration says it will focus on forming a new housing finance system.

Homeowners who are denied a modification under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) even after completing a trial period plan (TPP) have legal standing to sue their lender, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled Thursday. Reversing a lower court dismissal, the ""panel held that the district court should not have dismissed the plaintiffs' complaints when the record before it showed that the bank had accepted and retained the payments demanded by the TPP,"" the court opinion stated.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are eliminating the $500 incentive for competed borrower response packages starting August 1, according to separate bulletins issued by the GSEs. The GSEs also announced servicer incentives for Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) modifications will increase starting April 1, 2014.

Upon closer examination, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) has not helped as many borrowers as it may seem, according to a report from SIGTARP. HAMP, a government loan modification program created to prevent foreclosures, has provided about 1.2 million modifications to distressed borrowers since its inception in 2009. Of those borrowers, 306,538 redefaulted after falling behind on their payments by three months, which means in actuality, 865,100 are still actively in the program, the taxpayer watchdog agency revealed. Of the redefaulters, 22 percent have entered into the foreclosure process.

Servicers provided nearly 74,000 modifications for distressed homeowners in May, up from 70,000 in April, according to data from HOPE NOW, an alliance of mortgage servicers, investors, mortgage insurers, and nonprofit counselors. This raises the total for modifications to 6.47 million since 2007, which is when HOPE NOW began keeping track. Short sales also ticked up in May, rising slightly to 28,000, up from 27,000 in April. Since 2009, the industry has provided about 1.29 million short sales to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

Foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies may be declining, but that doesn't mean the industry should let its guard down. In the Obama Administration's latest housing scorecard, which provides an overview of the housing market based on private and public sector data, officials continued to warn of a ""fragile"" recovery despite improvements. ""[W]e remain cautious because although mortgage delinquencies are trending down, they still remain quite high compared to historic norms,"" said Kurt Usowski, assistant secretary for economic affairs at HUD.

National monetary policy alone cannot reliably prevent or reverse housing bubbles, according to a recent report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The downfall lies in the fact that housing prices and housing markets vary widely across the country, stated the researchers in the report. Monetary policy and large national programs such as the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) may help some markets while hurting others, according to the report.

Principal forbearance, a loan modification practice in which a loan servicer allows a borrower to delay payment on his/her loan for a specified period of time, apparently poses an accounting conundrum. While some servicers report forborne principal as a loss at the time of the loan modification, others wait until the time of liquidation. Ocwen, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and One West all report forbearance amounts as losses at the time of the loan modification.

Fitch Ratings has observed inconsistencies in the way servicers report losses in cases of principal forbearance. According to the agency, before 2010, pooling and servicing agreements did not require servicers to report forborne principal as losses. Nationstar Mortgage announced it is revising losses on loans with principal forbearances acquired in 2012 from Aurora Bank FSB and Aurora Loan Services.

Mortgage performance improved in the first quarter of this year, with 90.2 percent of mortgages current and performing, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) reported Thursday. The share is up from 89.4 percent in the previous quarter and 88.9 percent a year ago. For the most part, delinquencies and foreclosures were down across the board, with the exception of early delinquencies and newly initiated foreclosures. Though, despite a near 14 percent quarterly increase in newly initiated foreclosures, home retention actions far outpaced new foreclosures in the first quarter.