July Housing Scorecard a “Mixed Picture”

August 8, 2011 (Chris Moore)

Housing data through June continues to paint a housing market that is a mixed picture that remains fragile with continued strain from foreclosures and distressed properties while home prices improved slightly according to the latest release of the Obama Administrations Housing Scorecard.

At the end of June, prime mortgages that were at least 30 days of more late increased to 4.4 percent from 4.3 percent in May, down from the peak of 5.9 percent seen in 2010.

Performance of sub-prime mortgages continues to improve also as 30 days or more delinquencies dropped to 32.5 percent, down from 36.4 percent a year reported a year earlier.

Seriously delinquent mortgages, those that are more than 90 days delinquent or in foreclosure, also continued to drop. Seriously delinquent prime mortgages numbered 1,490,000 at the end of June compared to 1,864,000 a year earlier and seriously delinquent subprime mortgages numbered 1,744,000 compared to 1,973,000 in June of last year.

Since the beginning of the Homeowner Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) program in 2009 until the end of May 2011, nearly 5 million modification arrangements have been started. In June, 31,600 homeowners received a permanent loan modification through HAMP raising the total amount of permanent modifications to 763,100.

There were 24,700 new HAMP trial modifications started in June, down from 26,700 in May. HOPE Now proprietary modifications also declined in June, dropping to 52,000 modifications from 57,000 modifications in May. Total HOPE Now modifications now number 2,367,300.

"This month's housing data paint a mixed picture of conditions in the market – despite growing evidence of progress in the broader economy," said HUD Assistant Secretary Raphael Bostic. "We're continuing to see a slight improvement in home prices and a decline in mortgage defaults as our foreclosure prevention programs reach more borrowers upstream in the process. But we have much more work to do to help the market recover and to reach the many households there and across the nation who still face trouble."

Tags: July Housing Scorecard, Obama Administration, loan modification, foreclosure completions, monthly payment reduction, housing prices, mortgage delinquencies, foreclosure starts, foreclosure completions

Source:
Treasury.gov