HOPE NOW announced today that nearly 2.5 million homeowners have avoided foreclosure and been able to stay in their homes since July 2007 because of its efforts.
The program, founded by an alliance of mortgage market participants, mortgage servicers, and counselors working to keep home owners in their homes, said it helped helped 212,000 homeowners avoid foreclosure in September, alone.
This is the first time since HOPE NOW began compiling data in July 2007 that the number of foreclosures prevented in one month exceeded 200,000. It is also 30,000 or 15.6% more than the previous record of 192,000 foreclosure preventions that took place in August 2008.
Thus far in 2008, approximately 1.6 million homeowners had been able to avoid foreclosure, more than the approximately 1.5 million homeowners helped in all of 2007. If the trend stays on pace, in 2008 the mortgage lending industry will help approximately 2.1 million homeowners stay in their homes and avoid foreclosure, an almost 40% increase over the number of homeowners helped in 2007, HOPE NOW said.
The number of homeowners helped in September through mortgage modifications 98,000 also set a new record, according to HOPE NOW. September modifications were 22.5% higher than August 2008 when the program completed 79,000 modifications. Total repayment plans initiated in September were 113,000 3,000 more in August.
