June 10, 2011 (Jeff Alan)
The Treasury Department reports that a total of 699,053 permanent loan modifications have been started under the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) through the end of April, 2011. Permanent modifications in April numbered 28,867, which was less than the 36,827 recorded in March of 2011, but was in-line with the programs average for the last six months.
Mortgage servicers reported 29,011 new trial modifications were started in April bringing the total amount of homeowners in active trial modifications to 135,041 according to the Treasury’s Program Performance Report.
Homeowners who have received HAMP first lien permanent loan modifications have saved a total of $6.3 billion since the inception of HAMP in April 2009. The median savings for borrowers with active modifications is $526.06 which was 37% less than what their payment was before their loan modification.
Seventy-nine percent of homeowners who started trial modifications were at least 60 days or later delinquent at the start of the trial with the rest being up to 59 days late or current but in imminent default.
Homeowners who are in active permanent loan modifications gave the following primary reasons for their hardship:
– 60.7% experienced loss of income (curtailment of employment or unemployment)
– 11.4% reported excessive obligations
– 2.8% reported an illness to the principal borrower
Active permanent modifications by type were:
– 100% interest rate reduction
– 9.5% term extension
– 30.5% principal forbearance
Since June 2010, the average length of a trial modification was 3.5 months, down from 5.2 months for trials started before June 2010. Since that time, a larger percentage of trial modifications have also been converted to permanent modifications with 70 percent now being converted.
Since HAMP started, the total number of trial modifications numbered 1,588,034, with now less than half, 753,041, being canceled.
California continued to have the highest percentage of HAMP loan modifications, accounting for 24.0 percent of total activity. California to date has tallied 145,599 total HAMP permanent loan modifications.
Bank of America has had the most loan modifications with 155,636 total active modifications, followed by JPMorgan Chase with 104,970, and Wells Fargo Bank with 99,051 total active modifications.
Tags: Making Home Affordable, HAMP, loan modifications, trial modifications, permanent modifications, mortgage payment reductions, median payment reduction
Source:
Treasury Department
