by Calculated Risk on 4/16/2021 12:31:00 PM

Note: Both Black Knight and the MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) are putting out weekly estimates of mortgages in forbearance.

This data is as of April 13th.

From Black Knight: Forbearances Improve for Seventh Straight Week

The country saw a modest decrease in the number of active forbearance plans this week, falling by just 1,000 but still marking the seventh consecutive week of improvement.

This mid-month lull in improvement was expected – they’ve become commonplace during the recovery, with the strongest rates of improvement seen early and late in the month as mortgages are reviewed for extension/removal from forbearance. With 380,000 loans still slated for these reviews by the end of this month, we could still see additional forbearance improvement in late April/early May.

Click on graph for larger image.

Plan starts hit their highest level in three weeks, but this was primarily due to re-starts, as a portion of the nearly 500,000 homeowners who’d left forbearance in recent weeks likely reached out to their servicers to reinstate their plans. New plan starts remain near post-pandemic lows.

Despite the marginal improvement this week, the number of outstanding plans is still down by 296,000 (-11.4% month-over-month) marking considerable improvement in recent weeks. As of April 13, there are now 2.3 million homeowners in COVID-19-related forbearance plans, representing 4.4% of all mortgage-holders.

We’ll continue to monitor the situation, and will have another report published here next Friday, April 23.
emphasis added

The number of loans in forbearance continues to decline.