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HOPE NOW released its latest data on loan modifications, noting that in April approximately 42,000 homeowners completed a modification for their home's mortgage. All told, the organization reported that more than 7.02 million homeowners have completed home mortgage modifications since the third quarter of 2007.
HOPE NOW is an alliance between counselors, mortgage companies, investors, and other mortgage market participants.
The group's data revealed that 11,813 modifications utilized the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) in April, while the remaining 29,835 were proprietary modifications. In total, roughly 5.65 million homeowners have received proprietary loan modifications since 2007, and approximately 1.3 million homeowners have received HAMP modifications since 2009.
Eric Selk, Executive Director, said, "HOPE NOW is happy to report that mortgage servicers have offered at-risk homeowners over seven million loan modifications since we started reporting mortgage solution data. This milestone was achieved through a highly collaborative effort of the industry and its non-profit, government and local partners."
Selk continued, "Our members and partners have worked hard to educate homeowners on their options and offer them viable and sustainable solutions. We remain focused on face to face borrower outreach, with an event scheduled for Cleveland next week as well as Riverside and Sacramento in July."
Completed short sales increased slightly for the month, bumping up to 11,975 from March's total of 10,813. Deed-in-lieu actions increased as well, continuing an upward climb to 2,796 in April from 2,514 in March.
Foreclosures starts fell for the month, down to roughly 65,000 from 70,000 the previous month. Of the reported 65,000 properties beginning the foreclosure process in April, roughly 50,000 were considered prime loans, approximately 76 percent. The remaining loans were subprime.
Foreclosure sales remained relatively constant at 40,000 per month, with properties that were 60 days or more delinquent also remaining stable at roughly 1.9 million per month. By comparison, the organization noted that in December of 2009, roughly 4.13 million homeowners were delinquent 60 days or more.
