Homeowners on the verge of foreclosure will often seek a short sale as a graceful exit from an otherwise calamitous financial situation. Their homes are sold for less than the mortgage amount, and the remaining loan balance is usually forgiven by the lender.

But with short sales beyond the reach of some homeowners — they typically won’t qualify if they have a second mortgage on the home — another foreclosure alternative is emerging: “deeds in lieu of foreclosure.”

In this transaction, a homeowner simply relinquishes the property, turning over the deed to the bank, in exchange for the lender’s promise not to foreclose. In a straight foreclosure, a lender takes legal control of the property and evicts the occupants; in deeds-in-lieu transactions, the homeowner is typically allowed to remain in the home for a short period of time after the agreement.

More borrowers will at least have the chance to consider this strategy in the coming months, as CitiMortgage, one of the nation’s biggest mortgage lenders, tests a new program in Texas, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.

Citi recently agreed to give qualified borrowers six months in their homes before it takes them over. It will offer these homeowners $1,000 or more in relocation assistance, provided the property is in good condition. Previously, the bank had no formal process for serving borrowers who failed to qualify for Citi’s other foreclosure-avoidance programs like loan modification.

Citi’s new policy is similar to one announced last fall by Fannie Mae, the government-controlled mortgage company. Fannie is allowing homeowners to return the deed to their properties, then rent them back at market rates.

To qualify for the new program, Citi’s borrowers must be at least 90 days late on their mortgages and must not have a second lien on the home.

That policy may be a significant obstacle for borrowers, since many of the people facing foreclosure originally financed their homes with second mortgages — called “piggyback loans” — or borrowed against the homes’ equity after buying them.

Partly for that reason, Elizabeth Fogarty, a spokeswoman for Citi, said that the bank had only modest expectations for the test. Roughly 20,000 Citi mortgage customers in the pilot states will be eligible for a deed-in-lieu agreement, she said, and of those, about 1,000 will most likely complete the process.

As is often the case with deed-in-lieu settlements, Citi will release the borrower from all legal obligations to repay the loan.

In some states, like New York, New Jersey and Sonoma County Real Estate

Despite being months behind, many strapped residents are hanging on to their homes, essentially living rent-free. Pressure on banks to modify loans and a glut of inventory are driving the trend.

Throughout the country, people continue to default on their home loans — but lenders have backed off on forced evictions, allowing many to remain in their homes, essentially rent-free.

Several factors are driving the trend, industry experts say, including government pressure on banks to modify loans and keep people in their homes. And with a glut of inventory in places like Southern California’s Inland Empire, Nevada and Arizona, lenders are loath to depress housing prices further by dumping more properties into a weak market.

Finally, allowing borrowers to stay in their homes helps protect the bank’s investment as it negotiates with the homeowners, said Gary Kirshner, a spokesman for Chase bank, a major lender. “If the person’s in the property, there’s less chance for vandalism, and they’re probably maintaining the house,” he said.
Economists say the situation won’t last forever, but in the meantime the “amnesty” may allow at least some homeowners to regain their financial footing and avoid eviction.
In the Inland Empire, an estimated 100,000 homeowners are living rent-free, according to economist John Husing, who based that number on the difference between loan delinquencies and foreclosures. Industry experts say it’s difficult to say how many families are in that situation nationally because only banks know for sure how many customers have stopped paying entirely.

But Rick Sharga of Irvine data tracker RealtyTrac notes that the number of loans in which the borrower hasn’t made a payment in 90 days or more but is not in foreclosure is at 5.1% nationally, a record high. And yet the number of foreclosures last year was 2.9 million, below the 3.2 million that RealtyTrac economists predicted.

More evidence is provided by another firm, ForeclosureRadar, which says it now takes an average of 229 days for a bank to foreclose on a home in California after sending a notice of default, up from 146 days in August 2008.
“For some reason, banks are being more lenient with homeowners who are behind on their loans,” Sharga said. “Whether it’s a strategy to try and slow down the volume of foreclosures or simply a matter of the banks being able to keep up with volume is something that banks only know for sure.”
Lenders say the trend reflects their efforts to work with borrowers to modify loans to avoid foreclosure. Bank of America “continues to exhaust every possible option to qualify customers for modification or other solutions,” spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens said.
Some lenders are making it a policy to partner with delinquent borrowers. Citibank said this month that it would let borrowers on the brink of foreclosure stay at their homes for six months, whether or not they make payments, if they turn over their property deed.
Such policies may partly reflect the fact that lenders can’t keep up with all the foreclosures, some say.
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U.S. home prices fell 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, the smallest loss in two years, as a federal tax credit for home buyers boosted demand.

Government stimulus programs including the homebuyer tax credit and a Federal Reserve program to buy mortgage-backed bonds lifted the real estate market in the closing months of 2009. A sustained recovery in housing faces hurdles that include mounting  foreclosures and a weak labor market, said Thomas Lawler, a former economist with Fannie Mae who now is an independent housing consultant in Leesburg, Virginia.

“The government programs have helped to stabilize housing, but the market is still unbelievably fragile,” Lawler said in an interview. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen to all those properties in the foreclosure process.”

Prices in December slipped 1.5 percent from a year earlier. They rose 0.7 percent in the region that includes California, and 0.3 percent in the area of the country that includes Texas. Prices in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania fell 0.4 percent, while New England states had a 1 percent decline.

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