Nearly 95 percent of the 18.4 million mortgages reviewed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) were current and performing at the end of the third quarter of 2017.
The quarterly review, captured in the OCC Mortgage Metrics Report, showed that performance was unchanged from the previous quarter. The loans reviewed by the OCC comprise 33 percent of all residential mortgages outstanding in the U.S., totaling $3.32 trillion in principal balances.
The report also found that foreclosure activity decreased from the second quarter. Servicers initiated 34,266 new foreclosures in the third quarter, down 4.7 percent from the second quarter and down 28.5 percent from a year ago.
Mortgage modifications totaled 25,799 in the quarter, with 78 percent of those reducing borrowers’ monthly payments, the report stated. That’s down 15.5 percent from the second quarter.
Other findings include:
The report also looked at the performance of loan modifications from the first quarter, which have aged at least six months. Of the 35,137 issued during the first quarter, 14.2 percent were found to be 60 or more days past due or in the process of foreclosure at the end of the month that they became six months old.
Cover Story: