HOPE NOW, a private-sector alliance of mortgage firms, counselors and investors that is working to help prevent foreclosures, reports that lenders have helped more than 1.7 million homeowners avoid foreclosure since the program began in July 2007, including 170,000 homeowners in May 2008. Approximately 100,000 of the prime and subprime loan workouts in May were repayment plans while 70,000 were loan modifications, the agency says.
However, The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), a Durham-N.C.-based nonprofit research and policy group, says that a closer look at HOPE NOW’s latest figures shows that the agency’s voluntary efforts to help homeowners avoid foreclosure cannot keep up with the growing number of delinquent mortgages.
HOPE NOW reports 85,000 foreclosures in May 2008, the highest one-month figure since the program began, and an increase of 35 percent over the past three months. The total number of foreclosures is now estimated at nearly 650,000 since July 2007. The group also reported 276,000 loans had either entered or completed foreclosure in May, while only 70,000 received loan modifications during the month.
CRL also cited the latest quarterly survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association, which finds that more than 16 percent of subprime loans were more than 90 days delinquent or in foreclosure. That’s double the 8 percent rate from a year ago. The number of prime loans becoming delinquent has more than doubled from a year ago, the MBA reports.
“As foreclosures keep piling on, it makes no sense to keep relying on ineffective voluntary efforts when better solutions are at our fingertips,” says Debbie Goldstein, executive vice president of CRL. “The market has shown that it cannot fix itself.”
Tags: home foreclosures, mortgage, North Carolina