Loan Modfications Were Down 40% in 2011

Mortgage servicers provided more than 1 million homeowners with mortgage loan modifications in 2011 which is actually down quite a bit (40% to be exact) from 2010.  This information was release by the Hope Now Organization.

The actual numbers were 1.05 million permanent loan modifications in 2011, compared to 1.76 million in 2010. In December 2011 alone, Hope Now finished 80K mortgage modifications, including 56K proprietary loan modifications and about 23K completed via the federal Home Affordable Modification Program. In total, loan modification activity outpaced foreclosures in 2011. There were 843,000 foreclosure sales during the year, compared to 1.07 million in 2010.

Even though 2011 was another difficult year for the real estate market and the economy in general great strides were made by at-risk families across the nation. Since 2007, there have been more than 5 million permanent solutions to mortgage problems.

There is also great hope on the horizon with the release of the HARP 2.0 Program which will further help the homeowners with mortgage problems.

As far as the Loan modifications, those which reduced principal and lowered payments accounted for 80% of all proprietary mortgage mods or approximately 555K modifications. Fixed-rate modifications made up 82% of all proprietary loan modifications in 2011, or about 572K mods.

Gretchen Wegrich

Gretchen Wegrich is an editor at Lender411. She specializes in mortgage basics, personal finance and green living. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in writing from University of California, San Diego and previously worked at the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Contact her at gretchen@lender411com.