Last Thursday, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced that they will be halting almost 16,000 pending foreclosures during Nov. 26 through Jan. 9^th for the holiday season. During this time frame, they will be evaluating each household to see if they can qualify for the new loan modification program that was recently presented. According to Fannie, around 10,000 households will be temporarily saved by the halt, while Freddie says that it could also affect almost 6,000 borrowers who are about to confront foreclosure. Vacant homes are not included in the halt.

After being taken over by the government in September, new modification plans and procedures have been developed in Fannie and Freddie, in order to try and put a halt to the streams of foreclosures entering or about to enter the market. Their most current plan is aimed at assisting those, with loans held by Fannie and Freddie, who are at least three months behind on payments. Once placed into the plan, the borrowers´ new payments with tax and insurance included, would be put at less then 38% of the households´ pretax monthly income.

The Chief Executive of Freddie Mac, David Moffett, said that their temporary halt, "provides a new measure of certainty to many of these families during the holidays,". While this is great news for those with loans under and Fannie and Freddie, another note to consider is that Fannie and Freddie only control 20% of the loans delinquent in the market. Beyond that, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has also estimated that over 4.4 million borrowers, apart from those held by Fannie and Freddie, will become delinquent between now and the end of next year.