The monthly volume of completed loan modifications sank to smallest number in more than four years — reflecting a decline in distressed and negative-equity loans.
Residential servicers completed 42,145 loan modifications during February. It was the fewest modifications completed since at least 2009 — the oldest available monthly data.
The total includes loans modified through mortgage servicers’ own proprietary programs and through the Home Affordable Modification Program.
The data was reported Friday by HOPE NOW.
Loan modification volume was 44,237 in January and 80,499 in February 2013.
Since HOPE NOW began tracking modification activity in 2007, there have been 6.93 million loan modifications completed.
Declining volume reflects an improvement in the rate of distressed loans; the 90-day mortgage delinquency rate has fallen to 4.9 percent as of Feb. 28 from 7.8 percent at the end of 2010, according to data from CoreLogic Inc.
Another factor driving down modifications is negative equity. CoreLogic previously reported that the number of borrowers with loan-to-value ratios higher than 100 percent plunged to 6.5 million in the fourth-quarter 2013 from 10.4 million in the fourth-quarter 2012.
The most recent month included 12,455 HAMP modifications, tumbling from 15,729 the previous month and 15,386 the same month in the previous year.
The last time HAMP volume was this slow was in April 2013, when just 11,966 modifications were completed through the program.
Since HAMP was launched in early 2009, servicers have completed 1,339,682 loan modifications through the program.
Proprietary modifications accounted for 29,690 of February’s activity, up from 28,508 in January but tumbling from 65,113 in February 2013.
