Federal Housing Finance Agency Releases Q1 Foreclosure Prevention & Refinance Report

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which regulates Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the 11 Federal Home Loan Banks, today (6-22-21) released their Q1 2021 Foreclosure Prevention and Refinance Report (FPRR), which shows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) completed 224,646 foreclosure prevention actions in Q1 of 2021, bringing the total number of homeowners who have been helped during conservatorships to 5.812 million. The FPRR also shows that 38% of loan modifications completed in the first quarter reduced borrowers’ monthly payments by more than 20%. The number of refinances increased from 2.013 million in Q4 of 2020 to 2.016 million in the first quarter. In addition, The Enterprises’ serious delinquency rate dropped from 2.78% to 2.48% at the end of the quarter. This compares with 11% for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans, 5.59% for Veterans Affairs (VA) loans and 4.7% for all loans (industry average). The FPRR also reveals that the total number of loans in forbearance continued to trend downward since its peak in May 2020, as initiated forbearance plans decreased, but remained elevated through Q1 2020 when compared with pre-pandemic levels. As of March 31, 2021, there were 660,039 loans in forbearance plans, representing approximately 2.2 % of the Enterprises single-family conventional book of business, down from 804,559 or -2.8% at the end of Q4 of 2020.