by Calculated Risk on 12/01/2020 04:01:00 PM

Note: This is as of November 22nd.

From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Increases to 5.54%

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance increased from 5.48% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 5.54% as of November 22, 2020. According to MBA’s estimate, 2.8 million homeowners are in forbearance plans.
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“For the second week in a row, the share of loans in forbearance has increased, driven by a rise in new forbearance requests and another slowdown in the pace of forbearance exits. The increase was across all loan and servicer types. Even GSE loans, which had previously declined for 24 straight weeks, saw an increase last week,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “Additionally concerning, there was an increase in forbearance re-entries, as borrowers who had previously exited sought relief again. The increase in new forbearance requests may be the result of additional outreach to homeowners who had previously not taken advantage of forbearance opportunities. However, the slowing rate of exits to a new survey low further highlights that borrowers still in forbearance are increasingly challenged by the renewed restrictions on economic activity to contain the surge in COVID-19 cases.”

Added Fratantoni, “Recent housing market data remain quite strong and we expect that the market is well positioned for additional growth next year, but these data show that additional support is likely needed to get through this winter.”
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By stage, 20.34% of total loans in forbearance are in the initial forbearance plan stage, while 77.42% are in a forbearance extension. The remaining 2.24% are forbearance re-entries.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the percent of portfolio in forbearance by investor type over time.  Most of the increase was in late March and early April, and has been trending down for the last few months.

The MBA notes: "Weekly forbearance requests as a percent of servicing portfolio volume (#) increased to 0.11 percent from 0.09 percent the previous week."