Washington, D.C. – The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today released its first quarter 2020 Foreclosure Prevention and Refinance Report. The report shows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) completed 26,910 foreclosure prevention actions in the first quarter of 2020, bringing to 4.4 million the number of troubled homeowners who have been helped during conservatorships. Of these actions, 3.7 million of the foreclosure prevention actions have helped troubled homeowners stay in their homes.

Other report highlights include:

• Forbearance: newly initiated forbearance plans rose to 170,533 in the first quarter of 2020, up from 6,975 in the fourth quarter of 2019. A majority of the forbearance actions occurred as a result of the Enterprises' response COVID-19 impacts.
• Loan Modifications: of the 16,773 loan modifications completed, 38 percent reduced borrowers' monthly payments by more than 20 percent; 64 percent were extend-term only; and 23 percent were modifications with principal forbearance.
• Foreclose starts and sales:  7,704 third-party and foreclosure sales were completed, down 9 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.
• Foreclosure starts decreased 3 percent from 30,010 in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 28,978 in the first quarter of 2020.
• Refinances:  increased to 747,464 in the first quarter, from 728,842 in the fourth quarter of 2019

The Enterprises' serious (90 days or more) delinquency rate decreased to 0.64 percent at the end of the first quarter. This compared with 3.29 percent for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans, 1.80 percent for Veterans Affairs (VA) loans, and 1.67 percent for all loans (industry average).

FHFA's quarterly report also includes data on the Enterprises' mortgage performance, delinquency, home forfeiture actions and refinances by state.  FHFA publishes the report data in an online, interactive Borrower Assistance Map on FHFA.gov.  

Link to Report