Mortgage servicers completed 768,000 loan modifications for homeowners in 2013, according to HOPE NOW, a voluntary, private-sector alliance of mortgage servicers, investors, mortgage insurers and nonprofit counselors.
This includes approximately 592,843 proprietary loan modifications and 175,076 Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) modifications (as reported by the U.S. Treasury Department).
As of December, the total number of loan modifications since 2007 stood at 6.84 million.
Of those, 5,531,051 were via proprietary programs, and 1,311,498 were completed under HAMP.
In addition, 281,000 short sales were completed for the year. According to HOPE NOW's data, about 1.44 million short sales have been completed since 2009, when it first started tracking short sale data.
The combination of loan modifications and short sales has brought the total number of permanent, non-foreclosure solutions to approximately 8.28 million (for the years tracked).
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%. Completed foreclosure sales were 625,228 in 2013, compared to 778,508 in 2012 – a decline of around 20%.
HOPE NOW's data also shows that the number of loans that were seriously delinquent (60-plus days due) fell almost 13% year-over-year – from 2.52 million loans in December 2012 to 2.19 million loans in December 2013. Delinquency data is extrapolated from data received by the Mortgage Bankers Association for the third quarter of 2013.
‘The mortgage industry is able to provide at-risk homeowners with a multitude of solutions, which has resulted in more sustainable outcomes,’ says Eric Selk, executive director of HOPE NOW, in a release, adding that he is proud of the hard work of the organization's members and partners. ‘More than eight million non-foreclosure solutions have been completed since we began tracking data in 2007, with more than a million accomplished this year alone. Mortgage servicers continue to perform at a high level, in changing market conditions, and we applaud the efforts of our members. Delinquency numbers are down, which points to a recovering housing market. This decline in delinquencies closely tracks with the consistent number of solutions in the market.’
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