HOPE NOW released its final 2013 loan modification data, which shows that approximately 768,000 homeowners received permanent, affordable loan modifications from mortgage servicers in 2013. The reported data for December shows that, for the year, mortgage servicers completed approximately 592,843 proprietary loan modifications for homeowners and 175,076 Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) modifications (as reported by US Treasury Department). December data also showed approximately 281,000 short sales completed for the year.
The mortgage industry has completed 6,842,549 total permanent loan modifications for homeowners. Of those loan modifications, 5,531,051 were via proprietary programs and 1,311,498 were completed under HAMP.
Short sales for 2013 were 281,078, bringing the life to date total to 1,435,635. The combination of loan modifications and short sales has brought the total number of permanent, non-foreclosure solutions to approximately 8.28 million. HOPE NOW has been tracking short sale data since December 2009.
Foreclosure starts and completed foreclosure sales both declined compared to data reported in 2012. There were 1,278,779 foreclosure starts in 2013, compared to 1,922,523 in 2012 – a decline of approximately 33 percent. Completed foreclosure sales were 625,228 in 2013, compared to 778,508 in 2012 – a decline of around 20 percent.
The inventory of loans that were seriously delinquent in December 2013 was lower than the total from the same point in 2012. In the last month of 2013, there were approximately 2.19 million loans in this category, compared to 2.52 million at the end of 2012. This represents a decline of almost 13 percent. Delinquency data is extrapolated from data received by the Mortgage Bankers Association for the third quarter of 2013.
Proprietary loan modifications remained strong with respect to principal and interest reductions, as well as fixed interest rates. Of the 592,843 proprietary loan modifications reported for 2013:
►Loan modifications that included fixed interest rates of five years or more accounted for 94 percent (558,665) of the total.
►Proprietary loan modifications with reduced principal and interest monthly payments accounted for 82 percent (484,398) of the total.
►Proprietary loan modifications with reduced principal and interest payments of more than 10% accounted for 76 percent (449,242) of the total.
Year-end data showed a decline in the number of loan modifications completed, compared to 2012. However, there were significant declines in foreclosure starts and sales along with it.
►Loan mods completed decreased from 863,737 in 2012 to 767,919 in 2013 – a slight decline of approximately 11 percent.
►Foreclosure starts decreased from 1,922,523 in 2012 to 1,278,779 in 2013 – a decline of more than 33 percent.
►Foreclosure sales decreased from 778,508 in 2012 to 625,228 in 2013 – a decline of almost 20 percent.
►Loan mods completed decreased from 181,242 in Q3 2013 to 137,879 in Q4 2013 – a decline of approximately 24 percent.
►Foreclosure starts decreased from 290,099 in Q3 2013 to 265,609 in Q4 2013 – a decline of over eight percent.
►Foreclosure sales decreased from 166,809 in Q3 2013 to 131,504 in Q4 2013 – a decline of more than 21 percent.
