by Calculated Risk on 11/17/2010 09:11:00 PM

From Fed Governor Elizabeth Duke: Foreclosure documentation issues. She didn't provide any specifics although she noted that the report will be published early next year. She also mentioned some foreclosure data:

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Federal Reserve are conducting an in-depth review of practices at the largest mortgage servicing operations. ... The regulators expect the initial on-site portion of our work to be completed this year and currently plan to publish a summary overview of industry-wide practices in early 2011.

Duke discusses some of the potential risks from foreclosure issues, and she noted the Fed expects the number of foreclosures will stay elevated for several years:

The number of foreclosures initiated on residential properties has soared from about 1 million in 2006, the year that house prices peaked, to 2.8 million last year. Over the first half of this year, we have seen a further 1.2 million foreclosure filings, and an additional 2.4 million homes were somewhere in the foreclosure pipeline at the end of June. All told, we expect about 2.25 million foreclosure filings this year and again next year, and about 2 million more in 2012. While our outlook is for filings to decline in coming years, they will remain extremely high by historical standards. Currently, almost 5 million mortgage loans are 90 days or more past due or in foreclosure.

Note: We will have some updated delinquency data tomorrow. For Q2, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported that 9.11% of first-liens were 90 or more days delinquent or in the foreclosure process. That was about 4.8 million loans.

Tomorrow morning the MBA will release the Q3 National Delinquency Survey at 10 AM ET - and I'll be on the conference call at 10:30 AM.