Foreclosures, home forfeitures decreased during past year, OCC reports

By Thomas G. Wolfe, J.D.

According to a recent report released by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, while mortgage loan servicers initiated 37,300 new foreclosures during the first quarter of 2018, an increase of 8.1 percent from the prior quarter, there still was a 21.5 percent decrease in mortgage foreclosures overall when compared to a year earlier. Similarly, home forfeiture actions—completed foreclosure sales, short sales, and deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure actions—decreased to 19,360 during the first quarter of 2018, a reduction of 32.5 percent compared with a year earlier. At the same time, the “OCC Mortgage Metrics Report: First Quarter 2018” indicates that the performance of first-lien residential mortgages remained unchanged during the first quarter of 2018 compared with a year earlier.

The OCC’s latest mortgage-metrics report, which tracked national bank mortgage-loan data through March 31, 2018, indicates that reporting banks serviced approximately 17.8 million first-lien mortgage loans with $3.30 trillion in unpaid principal balances. As observed by the OCC, this $3.30 trillion figure represents “33 percent of all residential mortgage debt outstanding in the United States.”

According to the report, the percentage of mortgages that were current and performing at the end of the first quarter of 2018 remained at 95.6 percent relative to the previous year. In addition, loan servicers implemented 23,427 mortgage modifications in the first quarter of 2018—a 7.1 percent increase from the prior quarter’s modifications. Of those 23,427 completed mortgage modifications, 78.5 percent of them reduced borrowers’ monthly payments.

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