Hope Now claims housing rescue success

Hope Now helped 183,000 at-risk borrowers stay in their homes during the month of April, according to numbers released by the coalition on Friday. Hope Now, an alliance of mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and community advocacy groups, also said it has arranged a total of nearly 1.6 million loan workouts since the program began in July, 2007.

The April figure represents 23,000 more workouts than were completed in March, and the highest monthly total since Hope Now got started.

"These numbers clearly demonstrate that Hope Now is succeeding at helping homeowners avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes," said the organization's executive director, Faith Schwartz.

But most of the workouts - 105,000 - were repayment plans in which delinquent borrowers were simply given extra time to make up missed payments. About 77,000 of the workouts were actual mortgage modifications, which reduced a loan's balance or interest rate. Modifications are usually considered more effective, long-term solutions for delinquent borrowers, since these workouts permanently lower a homeowner's monthly payments.

The report also revealed that there were more than 80,000 foreclosures in April, a pace that has accelerated this year and puts the country on track for nearly one million foreclosures this year. No one wants that to happen, according to Schwartz.

"Foreclosure benefits no one: the borrower, community, lender and investor all lose," she said.