Fourth Consecutive Week of Forbearance Improvement

Overall, the total number of mortgages in forbearance continued to improve this week, as the number of active plans declined another 26K (-0.7%). This marks the fourth consecutive week of improvement, and declining volumes for 10 of the past 12 weeks.

As of September 15, just under 3.7M homeowners remain in COVID-19-related forbearance plans. That’s down more than 22% from the peak of over 4.7M in late May. These loans represent 7% of the active mortgage universe, unchanged from last week. Together, they represent $781 billion in unpaid principal.

Active forbearances are now down 266K (-7%) over the past 30 days, as servicers continue to proactively assess the 1.7M forbearance plans still set to expire in September for extensions and removals.

The week’s decline was primarily driven by GSE loans, with active forbearance plans dropping by 28K (-2%) and FHA/VA loans seeing just a -3K weekly decline. Active forbearances among loans held in private label securities or banks’ portfolios rose this week by 5K.‍

source: https://www.blackknightinc.com/blog-posts/fourth-consecutive-week-of-forbearance-improvement/