FHFA foreclosure prevention and refi report

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has released its third quarter 2020 Foreclosure Prevention and Refinance Report. The report shows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) completed 539,451 foreclosure prevention actions in the third quarter of 2020, bringing to 5.2 million the number of troubled homeowners who have been helped during conservatorships; 4.5 million of those actions have helped troubled homeowners stay in their homes.

Forbearance: newly initiated forbearance dropped significantly to 231 thousand in the third quarter from 1.5 million in the second quarter of 2020. The total number of loans in forbearance plans at the end of the quarter was 1 million, representing approximately 3.66 percent of the total loans serviced and 79 percent of total delinquent loans. A majority of the forbearance actions occurred as a result of the Enterprises' response to COVID-19 impacts.

Mortgage Performance: The 60+ days delinquency rate decreased from 4.08 percent at the end of the second quarter to 3.58 percent at the end of the third quarter. Overall, delinquency rates remained much higher than pre-coronavirus rates due to the forbearance programs being offered to borrowers affected by the pandemic.

• The Enterprises' serious (90 days or more) delinquency rate jumped to 3.14 percent at the end of the third quarter. This compared with 10.76 percent for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans, 5.77 percent for Veterans Affairs (VA) loans, and 5.16 percent for all loans (industry average).

Foreclosure starts decreased 10 percent from 7,551 in the second quarter to 6,809 in the third quarter of 2020.

Refinances increased to 1.8 million in the third quarter, from 1.5 in the first quarter of 2020.

REO inventory decreased 25 percent in the third quarter.