- The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released a report on mortgage performance.
- CFPB releases its Consumer Response Annual Report analyzing the complaints it received in 2014 and its fourth annual Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
- FHFA releases its 2014 fourth quarter Foreclosure Prevention Report stating the foreclosure prevention actions by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
- HUD releases report in which it evaluates the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
Tag Archives: mortgage performance
Good Data for the FHFA
The Federal Housing Finance Agency released a White Paper on the FHFA Mortgage Analytics Platform. By way of background, the White Paper states that
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) maintains a proprietary Mortgage Analytics Platform to support the Agency’s strategic plan. The objective of this white paper is to provide interested stakeholders with a detailed description of the platform, as it is one of the tools the FHFA uses in policy analysis. The distribution of this white paper is part of a larger effort to increase transparency on mortgage performance and the analytical tools used for policy analysis and evaluation within the FHFA.
The motivation to build the FHFA Mortgage Analytics Platform derived from the Agency’s need for an independent empirical view on multiple policy initiatives. Academic empirical studies may suffer from a lack of high quality data, while empirical work from inside the industry typically represents a specific view. The FHFA maintains several vendor platforms from which an independent view is possible, yet these platforms tend to be inflexible and opaque. The unique role of the FHFA as regulator and conservator necessitated platform flexibility and transparency to carry out its responsibilities.
The FHFA Mortgage Analytics Platform is maintained on a continuous basis; as such, the material herein represents the platform as of the publication date of this document. As resources permit, this document will be up dated to reflect enhancements to the platform. (2)
This platform is a very welcome development for exactly the reasons that the White Paper sets forth. Academics have a very hard time accessing good data on the mortgage markets (its usually expensive, untimely, limited). Industry interpretations of data typically have agendas.
A sampling of the Platform’s elements include:
- Performing Unpaid Principal Balance
- Scheduled Paid Principal Balance
- Unscheduled Paid Principal
- Dollars of New 90 Day Delinquencies
- Non-Performing Balances
- Property Value of Non-Performing Loans (30-31)
Let us hope that the Platform offers a transparent and flexible tool to track this very dynamic market.
Mortgage Market Trending in the Right Direction, but . . .
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released its OCC Mortgage Metrics Report, First Quarter 2014. the report is a “Disclosure of National Bank and Federal Savings Association Mortgage Loan Data,” and it “presents data on first-lien residential mortgages serviced by seven national banks and a federal savings association with the largest mortgage-servicing portfolios. The data represent 48 percent of all first-lien residential mortgages outstanding in the country and focus on credit performance, loss mitigation efforts, and foreclosures.” (8, footnote omitted) As a result, this data set is not representative of all mortgages, but it does cover nearly half the market.
The report found that
93.1 percent of mortgages serviced by the reporting servicers were current and performing, compared with 91.8 percent at the end of the previous quarter and 90.2 percent a year earlier. The percentage of mortgages that were 30 to 59 days past due decreased 20.9 percent from the previous quarter to 2.1 percent of the portfolio, a 19.8 percent decrease from a year earlier and the lowest since the OCC began reporting mortgage performance data in the first quarter of 2008. The percentage of mortgages included in this report that were seriously delinquent—60 or more days past due or held by bankrupt borrowers whose payments were 30 or more days past due — decreased to 3.1 percent of the portfolio compared with 3.5 percent at the end of the previous quarter and 4.0 percent a year earlier. The percentage of mortgages that were seriously delinquent has decreased 22.4 percent from a year earlier and is at its lowest level since the end of June 2008.
At the end of the first quarter of 2014, the number of mortgages in the process of foreclosure fell to 432,832, a decrease of 52.3 percent from a year earlier. The percentage of mortgages that were in the process of foreclosure at the end of the first quarter of 2014 was 1.8 percent, the lowest level since September 2008. During the quarter, servicers initiated 90,852 new foreclosures — a decrease of 49.1 percent from a year earlier. Factors contributing to the decline include improved economic conditions, aggressive foreclosure prevention assistance, and the transfer of loans to servicers outside the reporting banks and thrift. The number of completed foreclosures decreased to 56,185, a decrease of 7.5 percent from the previous quarter and 33.9 percent from a year earlier. (4)
These trends are all very good of course, but it is worth remembering how far we have to go to get back to historical averages, particularly for prime mortgages. Pre-Financial Crisis prime mortgages typically have done much better than these numbers, with delinquency rates in the very low single digits.
