More prime mortgages default in 3rd quarter

Also: Many homeowners with modified mortgages fall behind again. And the number of homes in foreclosure rises, though new foreclosures are steady, report shows.

By Jim Puzzanghera

December 22, 2009

Reporting from Washington

Troubled home loans continued to mount in the nation's banks in the third quarter as even once-solid borrowers increasingly fell behind on their mortgage payments.

For the first quarter ever, the number of homes in foreclosure with mortgages serviced by U.S. national banks and savings and loans topped the 1-million mark, according to figures released Monday by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The percentage of prime borrowers whose loans were 60 or more days past due doubled from the July-to-September period a year earlier. And more than half of all homeowners whose payments had been lowered through modification plans defaulted again.

The report, which covers about 34 million loans, or about 65% of all U.S. mortgages, underscores the obstacles to strengthening the nation's rickety housing market. Stubborn unemployment is making it tough for millions of homeowners to pay their debts. In addition, many people whose monthly installments have been lowered still are unable to keep up with their payments.

Of the mortgages serviced by national banks and thrifts, only 87.2% were current and performing. It was the sixth straight quarter that the quality of those home loan portfolios had slipped.

"Mortgage performance continued to decline as a result of continuing adverse economic conditions including rising unemployment and loss in home values," the report said.

Seriously delinquent mortgages -- loans 60 or more days past due and loans to delinquent borrowers who have filed for bankruptcy -- rose to 6.2% of the servicing portfolio. That's a 16.7% increase over the second quarter and a 73.8% increase from a year earlier, the report said.

Of those seriously delinquent loans, the number of homes in the foreclosure process reached 1.09 million, about 3.2% of all the loans surveyed.

The report highlighted some troubling trends as the housing market continues to struggle despite increasing sales and prices in many areas. Difficulties increased for holders of prime mortgages, with the percentage of those loans that were 60 days or more past due increasing to 3.2%, up almost 20% from the second quarter and more than double the rate of a year earlier.

In addition, holders of mortgages whose payments had been lowered through government or private modification plans re-defaulted at high rates. More than half of all homeowners with modified loans fell 60 days or more behind in their payments within six months of the modification taking place.

But Bruce Krueger, a mortgage analyst for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, noted that homeowners with more-recent modifications were doing better at keeping up with their new payments, reflecting a push by the Obama administration to get mortgage servicers to come up with better plans.

About 35% of homeowners who received modifications in the third quarter of 2008 fell 60 days or more behind on their payments within three months of the modification, the report said. That figure decreased to about 19% of homeowners who received a modification in the second quarter of this year.

Still, the report's data could add pressure on Congress to give financially strapped homeowners additional help by allowing judges to lower mortgage principle as part of bankruptcy, said Jaret Seiberg, a financial policy analyst with Concept Capital's Washington Research Group.

"While the re-default rate seems to be getting better, it's still very high and it's high enough to continue causing a political problem for the industry," he said.

Mortgage modifications increased in the third quarter as the Obama administration pushed servicers to participate in its Making Home Affordable modification program. The report said servicers modified 680,000 loans through that program or their own efforts. Overall, mortgage servicers started almost twice as many modifications as new foreclosures.

Oddly, the increased attempt to keep people in their homes with lower payments contributed to the rise in the number of homes in the foreclosure process. The pace of homes beginning foreclosure proceedings remained about the same in the third quarter as it was earlier this year. But fewer of those proceedings were finished, as mortgage servicers worked with homeowners to modify some of those loans.

Monday's report comes on the heels of a private report last week that said there were 1.7 million homes headed for the market because of foreclosures or delinquency. That backlog of "shadow inventory" increased 55% in the year that ended Sept. 30, said the report by First American CoreLogic, a Santa Ana research firm.

The Obama administration has been trying to reduce foreclosures through its mortgage modification program, but reported this month that few of the three-month trial modifications were being made permanent. Of the more than 700,000 trial modifications offered by mortgage servicers, just 31,382 had been made permanent as of Nov. 30. Administration officials have increased pressure on mortgage servicers to improve that figure.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- After surging 10% in October, sales of existing homes jumped again in November, growing 7.4% compared with October to an annualized rate of 6.54 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors.

"This clearly is a rush of first-time buyers not wanting to miss out on the tax credit," said NAR's chief economist, Lawrence Yun.

November was originally going to be the last month in which sales to first-time homebuyers would qualify for a federal tax credit of up to $8,000. However, that deadline was extended through June.

In addition, the tax credit was expanded to cover people who already own a home. They can qualify for a $6,500 tax credit if purchase a new house before the end of June. That should encourage "trade-up" buyers.

The strength of sales in November surprised the industry. A panel of experts compiled by Briefing.com had forecast month-over-month sales growth of just 2.5% to 6.25 million from 6.1 million a month earlier.

The sales total was also a huge improvement over a year ago. Sales rose 45.7% over the paltry annualized rate of 4.49 million units during November 2008.

The contribution made by first-time buyers is evident in a separate survey NAR conducted of its members. They estimate that 51% of sales in November were by newcomers to the market, up a point from 50% in October. Normally, first timers account for about 40% of sales.

Also propelling sales higher were rock-bottom interest rates. The average for a 30-year, fixed-rate loan during the month was just 4.88%, down from 4.95% in October and 6.09% a year ago.

With rates that much lower, homebuyers can save more than $150 a month on a $200,000 mortgage.

The industry expects home sales to slacken December, partially because of the tax credit's originally scheduled demise. That caused some buyers to push up their closing, stealing sales from December.

However, sales will not fall off a cliff, though, according to Walter Molony, a NAR spokesman. "The psychology seems to be turning around," he said. "Potential buyers, who had been staying on the fence, now believe we're at or near the market bottom."

One X-factor, however, is the vast numbers of homes that may come to market over the next few months. There is a large "shadow inventory" -- homes owned by banks and mortgage companies -- that have not yet been put up for sale. It could be as many as 1.7 million units, according to First American CoreLogic.

In addition, another spate of foreclosures could be hitting the market as a number of option-ARM mortgages are set to default.

All that may drive prices down, according to Shari Olefson, author of "Foreclosure Nation: Mortgaging the American Dream." And the impact of these renewed price declines could again alter the market psychology.

"People think that prices have bottomed," she said. "I don't think they have. People will see price declines and that will discourage them from buying."

Mike Larson, a real estate analyst with Weiss Research has preached all through the bust that price declines are what will "fix" the housing crisis.

"We needed to see prices fall to make ownership competitive with renting again, and to restore the normal relationship of house prices to income," he said. "That has now happened and you're seeing buyers come out of the woodwork as a result."

Still, they will have to come out in large numbers to offset the inventory overhang in some of the worst markets, according to Olefson. In the Florida condo market, for example, there is a 35-to-40 month supply of units at the current rates of sale, she said.

Prices still almost certainly have further to fall. 

In the go-go years of the U.S. housing boom, virtually anybody could get a few hundred thousand dollars to buy a home, and private lenders flooded the market, aggressively pursuing borrowers no matter their means or financial history.

Now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Only one lender of consequence remains: the federal government, which undertook one of its earliest and most dramatic rescues of the financial crisis by seizing control a year ago of the two largest mortgage finance companies in the world, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

While this made it possible for many borrowers to keep getting loans and helped protect the housing market from further damage, the government's newly dominant role -- nearly 90 percent of all new home loans are funded or guaranteed by taxpayers -- has far-reaching consequences for prospective home buyers and taxpayers.

The government has the power to decide who is qualified for a loan and who is not. As a result, many borrowers among both poor and rich are frozen out of the market.

Nearly one-third of those who obtained home loans during the boom years of 2005 and 2006 couldn't get one today, according to mortgage industry analysts. Many of these borrowers were never really able to afford their homes and should not have gotten loans. But many others could, and borrowers like them are now running into tougher government standards.

At the same time, taxpayers are on the hook for most of the loans that are still being made if they go bad. And they are also on the line for any losses in the massive portfolios of old loans at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or back more than $5 trillion in mortgages.

There is growing evidence that many loans being guaranteed by the government have a significant risk of defaulting. Delinquencies are spiking. And the Federal Housing Administration, another source of government support for home loans, is quickly eating through its financial cushion as losses mount.

The outlay has already reached about $1 trillion over the past year and is rising. During that time, the government has pumped more money into the mortgage market than has been spent on Medicare or Social Security or the defense budget, more even than Washington has paid to bail out banks and other struggling companies.

"Absent government intervention, there would be no lending," said Nicolas P. Retsinas, director of Harvard University's center for housing studies.

Government officials generally agree that it would be better for private lenders to resume their traditional role as major providers of finance for home loans. But policymakers now face some tough choices. They must decide how to reduce support for the mortgage market without letting it collapse. And they must decide what kind of support the government should provide in the long run.

"The problem was a long time brewing, and the problems in our mortgage finance system will take a long time to repair," said Michael Barr, the Treasury's assistant secretary for financial institutions.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were chartered by Congress four decades ago to create a marketplace where mortgage lenders could sell the loans they made and use that money to make more loans. The two companies were owned by private shareholders and for a fee guaranteed investors in mortgage loans that they would get paid. After the government seized Fannie and Freddie, it offered them an unlimited line of credit and pledged to inject up to $400 billion to keep them solvent.

But this is not the only form that government involvement in housing finance takes.

The Federal Reserve is purchasing hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgages with the aim of ultimately owning $1.25 trillion worth. This buying spree has flooded the mortgage market with money, forcing down interest rates and assuring lenders they have somewhere to sell their loans. The Treasury Department has a similar, though smaller, program.

The Federal Housing Administration, meantime, is dramatically increasing the amount of home loans it insures. Its share of new mortgages jumped from 1.8 percent in 2006 to 18 percent so far this year, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. It expects to insure about $400 billion this year. Several other agencies, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, also provide mortgage guarantees.

All told, the government now stands behind 86 percent of all new home loans, up from about 30 percent just four years ago, according to Inside Mortgage Finance.

Fannie and Freddie had long played a dominant role in the mortgage market, providing traditional 30-year, fixed-rate loans. But earlier this decade, they faced competition from banks and other lenders promoting exotic mortgages, such as those that did not require proof of income or were available to people with checkered credit histories. With housing prices on the rise, these loans became ever more prevalent, and lenders figured that a struggling borrower could always get out from under a loan by selling or refinancing his home.

For the first time in decades, the rate of home ownership ticked up, reaching 69.2 percent. Many first-time buyers were of lower income, and many such buyers were black or Hispanic. Fannie and Freddie, afraid of losing more market share, also began funding risky loans.

Then, in 2006, the housing market began to tumble and many people couldn't or wouldn't pay their loans. Lenders and mortgage financiers suffered staggering losses. New loans dried up. Interest rates spiked. With investor confidence in Fannie and Freddie crumbling and the global economy at stake, the government seized the firms, nationalizing the U.S. housing finance system.

Many borrowers had been put into loans they could not afford, and when the mortgages failed the results were catastrophic, precipitating the financial crisis.

The tighter market that emerged -- whether the consequence of stricter government standards or an industry retreat from risky practices -- now excludes some groups of aspiring home buyers.

"People say, 'Well that's good because of lots of people who got loans in the past shouldn't have gotten those loans at all,' " said Keith Gumbinger, a vice president at research firm HSH Associates. "But there were tiny niche markets for whom those products were originally intended, and those people who legitimately need them now won't get them."

Although Fannie and Freddie don't make loans, they effectively set standards for the mortgage industry by detailing what kind of loans they will purchase from lenders and at what cost. The companies, for instance, require documentation of income and have increased fees on loans for people who lack stellar credit and hefty down payments, especially those looking to buy condominiums.

All but gone are subprime mortgages, initially meant to help people with blemished credit until they could get another loan. All but gone are the no-money-down mortgages used by four out of 10 first-time home buyers in 2005 and 2006. Those loans originally catered to wealthy borrowers with great credit who wanted to buy a home without having to liquidate their investments.

And the advances in minority and low-income home ownership recorded earlier this decade have largely proved to be a mirage. The U.S. homeownership rate has declined to 67.4 percent.

Some people who are no longer eligible for loans elsewhere have turned to FHA, which does not demand top-notch credit scores or sizable down payments. But for some consumers, such as Lisa McCracken of Stafford County, the FHA's minimum 3.5 percent down payment can be a stretch.

McCracken, a traveling nurse, has been scrimping to raise the down payment, living with her parents to save money. "I think I can swing it, but it won't be easy," she said. "I'll be wiping out a lot of my savings to buy a house." The self-employed face difficulties because they tend to have a tough time documenting their income, as required by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA loans.

Donald Prieto, who owns a roof contracting business in San Diego, has shelved his plans to buy a new home. Five years ago, he and his wife purchased a small home without having to verify his income. They have made their payments on time, have maintained solid credit scores and have plenty of cash in the bank, he said. Now, they have three children. They want a larger home, but several lenders have turned them away because he does not have two years' worth of paychecks to show.

For that reason, Prieto has incorporated his company and started cutting himself formal paychecks. "No bank wants to take risks anymore, and I understand that," Prieto said. "I just have to wait."

Other would-be buyers -- including investors, second-home and condo buyers, and people who need exceptionally large loans dubbed "jumbos" -- have fewer options than before.

Earlier this summer, Philip Zanga, an investor, signed a contract on a $367,000 condo in Bethesda this summer and paid a $15,000 deposit. He planned to put down 60 percent, but his loan was rejected. Investors and loans for condos are both deemed risky by Fannie and Freddie.

"Why turn away someone willing to put 60 percent down?" asked Avi Galanti, Zanga's real estate agent. "What's the risk in that?"

Taxpayers could be hit with a staggering tab even if a small proportion of loans go bad. Fannie and Freddie now own or guarantee more than $5 trillion in home loans. (That equals two-thirds of the debt the U.S. government owes.)

And many could be in trouble. Mortgages owned and backed by the companies often required down payments of no more than 10 percent. With housing prices down sharply, many borrowers are underwater, owing more than their home is worth, so they cannot sell or refinance to pay off troubled loans.

As the economy has deteriorated, delinquencies are spiking and losses are mounting. In the past year and half, the companies have posted more than $150 billion in losses.

Similar risks threaten to engulf FHA. Nearly 8 percent of FHA loans at the end of June were either 30 days late or in the process of foreclosure, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That compares with 5.4 percent of such loans a year ago.

As a result, FHA has been exhausting much of its loss reserves, which are funded by premiums paid by borrowers. The reserves currently stand at an estimated 3 percent of all outstanding loans, half of what they were just a year ago. If the reserves fall below the 2 percent threshold set by Congress, they could require a taxpayer bailout.

"Having the government this heavily into the mortgage market is inherently a dangerous thing for taxpayers," said Anthony Sanders, a finance professor at George Mason University. "We've already gone through one big bubble and burst, and right now the taxpayers are on the hook for a substantial amount of money."

In Down Real-Estate Market, Homeowners Are Deciding to Abandon Their Loan Obligations Even if They Can Afford the Payments

• and NICK TIMIRAOS

PHOENIX -- Should I stay or should I go? That is the question more Americans are asking as the housing market continues to drag.

In good times, it would have been unthinkable to stop paying the mortgage. But for Derek Figg, a 30-year-old software engineer, it now seems like the best option.

Mr. Figg felt trapped in a home he bought two years ago in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe for $340,000. He still owes about $318,000 but figures the home's value has dropped to $230,000 or less. After agonizing over the pros and cons, he decided recently to stop making loan payments, even though he can afford them.

Mr. Figg plans to rent an apartment nearby, saving about $700 a month.

Strategic Defaults by State

View Interactive

See data on "strategic defaults" -- homeowners who choose to default on their mortgage even though they could still afford to pay it.

• More interactive graphics and photos

A growing number of people in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada, where home prices have plunged, are considering what is known as a "strategic default," walking away from their mortgages not out of necessity but because they believe it is in their best financial interests.

A standard mortgage-loan document reads, "I promise to pay" the amount borrowed plus interest, and some people say that promise should remain good even if it is no longer convenient.

George Brenkert, a professor of business ethics at Georgetown University, says borrowers who can pay -- and weren't deceived by the lender about the nature of the loan -- have a moral responsibility to keep paying. It would be disastrous for the economy if Americans concluded they were free to walk away from such commitments, he says.

Discuss the Ethics

Developments: Is Walking Away FromYour Mortgage Immoral?

Walking away isn't risk-free. A foreclosure stays on a consumer's credit record for seven years and can send a credit score (based on a scale of 300 to 850) plunging by as much as 160 points, according to Fair Isaac Corp., which provides tools for analyzing credit records. A lower credit score means auto and other loans are likely to come with much higher interest rates, and credit card issuers may charge more interest or refuse to issue a card.

In addition, many states give lenders varying degrees of scope to seize bank deposits, cars or other assets of people who default on mortgages.

Even so, in neighborhoods with high concentrations of foreclosures, "it's going to be really difficult to prevent a cascade effect" as one strategic default emboldens others to take that drastic step, says Paola Sapienza, a professor of finance at Northwestern University. A study by researchers at Northwestern and the University of Chicago found that as many as one in four defaults may be strategic.

Driving this phenomenon is the rising number of households that are deeply "under water," owing much more than the current value of their homes. First American CoreLogic, a real-estate information company, estimates that 5.3 million U.S. households have mortgage balances at least 20% higher than their homes' value, and 2.2 million of those households are at least 50% under water. The problem is concentrated in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada.

Josh Cotner, who owns an insurance agency, says his mortgage balance is about $100,000 more than the market value of his home in Gilbert, Ariz. Mr. Cotner could rent a bigger home nearby for $600 a month, far below the $1,655 he now pays on his mortgage, home insurance and property tax. He says he recently stopped making mortgage payments because his lender wouldn't help him reduce the principal on his loan under a federal program in which he believes he is qualified to participate. Given the sometimes lengthy legal process of foreclosure, he may be able to stay in the home for at least another nine months without making any payments.

Banks warn they may get tough with strategic defaulters by pursuing legal claims on a borrower's other assets. "We will try to reduce people's payments if they have a hardship," says Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. "But we have a financial responsibility to get people to pay what they owe if they can afford it."

Steven Olson, a loan officer and roof installer in Roseville, Minn., defaulted in 2007 on a plot of land in Florida he had bought as an investment. "I thought I could move on with my life," he says. But the lender, RBC Bank, a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada, sued him, seeking to make him pay more than $400,000 to the bank to cover its losses on the loan. Mr. Olson has hired a Florida lawyer, Roy Oppenheim, to resist the claim. An RBC spokesman declined to comment.

States where lenders generally can pursue such legal claims include Florida and Nevada but not California and Arizona, where laws generally prohibit lenders from pursuing other assets of mortgage borrowers. A new Nevada law will protect many borrowers from these judgments if they bought a home for their own use after Sept. 30, 2009.

Another risk for defaulters is that banks could sell the rights to pursue claims to collection agencies or other firms, which could then dun the borrowers for up to 20 years after a foreclosure. Such threats appear to deter some borrowers. A recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond found that under-water borrowers were 20% more likely to default in a state where mortgage lenders can't pursue claims on other assets than in those where they can.

Journal Community

• Vote: How much of your home's value do you owe on your mortgage?

Brent White, an associate law professor at the University of Arizona who has written about this issue, says homeowners should make the decision on whether to keep paying based on their own interests, "unclouded by unnecessary guilt or shame." He says borrowers can take a cue from lenders that "ruthlessly seek to maximize profits or minimize losses irrespective of concerns of morality or social responsibility."

But it isn't just a matter of the borrower's personal interest, says John Courson, chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association, a trade group. Defaults hurt neighborhoods by lowering property values, he says, adding: "What about the message they will send to their family and their kids and their friends?"

From the Archives

• Confessions of an Underwater Homeowner
• American Dream 2: Default, Then Rent

In Mesa, another suburb of Phoenix, low prices are helping to draw buyers who may walk away from other homes. Christina Delapp bought a house out of foreclosure in July for $49,000 in cash. She says she will stop paying the mortgage on another home she still owns in Tempe if she can't sell in the next few months for more than the $312,000 that she owes.

Ms. Delapp, who has been jobless for 18 months, says that the new home is part of her survival strategy. "I feel very fortunate," she says. "Regardless of what happens to my credit, we've managed to put together the best safety plan that I possibly could."

Mr. Figg says that deciding to default on his loan was "the toughest decision I ever made." He worried that if he ever loses his job he would be marooned in a home that he couldn't sell for enough to pay off his loan, limiting his ability to find work in other parts of the country: "I couldn't move up. I couldn't move down. I couldn't move out of the city. It was a very claustrophobic situation."

By moving to an apartment, Mr. Figg expects to lower his costs by about $700 a month. He plans to put that into his savings account and says he is willing to rent for the next five years or so.

Lenders are guilty of having "manipulated" the housing market during the boom by accepting dubious appraisals, Mr. Figg says. "When I weighed everything," he says, "I was able to sleep at night."