As of the end of 2010, 87.6 percent of the 32.9 million residential mortgages covered by a report from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision were current.
The fourth quarter Mortgage Metrics Report also revealed that the percentage of mortgages that were seriously delinquent fell to its lowest point since the second quarter of 2009.
Meanwhile, completed foreclosures decreased by nearly 50 percent to 95,067, largely due to the ongoing robosigning scandal.
And newly initiated foreclosures decreased by nearly eight percent to 352,318, pushing foreclosure inventory up seven percent to 1,290,253 units, or 3.9 percent of the total servicing portfolio.
But both new and completed foreclosures are expected to increase in upcoming quarters as moratoria are lifted and the huge inventory of seriously delinquent loans and loans currently in the process of foreclosure make their way through the system.
Home Retention Actions Triple Home Forfeiture Actions
During the quarter, loan servicers implemented 473,415 “home retention actions,” which include loan modifications, trial payment plans, and so forth, compared with 146,132 completed “home forfeiture actions,” which include short sales, foreclosures, and deeds-in-lieu-of-foreclosure.
Home retention actions increased slightly from the prior quarter, mainly attributable to new trial plans extended under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which is currently on the chopping block.
Over the past five quarters, loan servicers initiated nearly 2.7 million home retention actions, including roughly 1.1 million loan mods, 1 million trial-period plans, and 640,000 payment plans.
Unsurprisingly, 57 percent of loan mods made since January 1, 2008 that reduced mortgage payments by 10 percent or more were current as of the end of the fourth quarter, while only 34 percent made during the same period that reduced payments by less than 10 percent were in good standing.
The report covers roughly 63 percent of all first-lien mortgages in nationwide, worth $5.7 trillion in outstanding balances.