Inventory
info icon
Single family homes on the market. Updated weekly.Powered by Altos Research
722,032+456
30-yr Fixed Rate30-yr Fixed
info icon
30-Yr. Fixed Conforming. Updated hourly during market hours.
7.00%0.01
Economics

Post-Moratorium Foreclosure Sales Surge

Although government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) increased their foreclosure prevention actions by 9% in February, completed foreclosure sales at the GSEs surged nearly 900% from January, according to the foreclosure prevention report issued Tuesday by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) on behalf of the enterprises. FHFA director James Lockhart touted a 26% growth in completed loan modifications between the GSEs, while repayment plans grew 38% in February. Loan modifications accounted for 43% of all preventative actions in the month, he said, up from 43% in January. Of the month’s modifications, 70% involved both interest rate reductions and term extensions. Credit quality deteriorated in the month, however, as collateral performance declined. Some 41,000 loans became 60+ days delinquent in February, bringing the total delinquent volume among the enterprises to 1.1m loans. One in 10 nonprime loans, which account for 16% of the enterprises’ combined 30.2m loans, qualified as 60+ days delinquent at the end of February. The deterioration seen in the month hardly touches the massive influx of foreclosure sales completed on mortgages that became delinquent up to three months before. The enterprises temporarily froze foreclosure sales on owner-occupied properties from late November ’08 to late January ’09 and then revived the moratorium for the last two weeks of February. “The suspension led to a substantial reduction in completed foreclosure sales in December 2008 and January 2009,” FHFA’s Lockhart said. Once the moratorium expired at the end of January, however, completed foreclosure sales surged to 28,897 in February from 3,222 the month before. And that was just for the first half of the month. The second freeze expired March 6. If February’s data is any indication, sales might also spike in next month’s report. Write to Diana Golobay at diana.golobay@housingwire.com. Disclosure: The author held no relevant investment positions when this story was published. Indirect holdings may exist via mutual fund investments.

Most Popular Articles

Latest Articles

Lower mortgage rates attracting more homebuyers 

An often misguided premise I see on social media is that lower mortgage rates are doing nothing for housing demand. That’s ok — very few people are looking at the data without an agenda. However, the point of this tracker is to show you evidence that lower rates have already changed housing data. So, let’s […]

3d rendering of a row of luxury townhouses along a street

Log In

Forgot Password?

Don't have an account? Please