MBA Survey: "Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Decreases to 3.08%"

Note: This is as of September 5th.

From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Decreases to 3.08%

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 15 basis points from 3.23% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 3.08% as of September 5, 2021. According to MBA’s estimate, 1.5 million homeowners are in forbearance plans.

The share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance decreased 11 basis points to 1.52%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance decreased 24 basis points to 3.39%, while the forbearance share for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) decreased 25 basis points to 7.27%. The percentage of loans in forbearance for independent mortgage bank (IMB) servicers decreased 16 basis points to 3.33%, and the percentage of loans in forbearance for depository servicers decreased 18 basis points to 3.15%.

“The share of loans in forbearance decreased by 15 basis points last week, as forbearance exits jumped to their fastest pace since March. The fast pace of exits outweighed the slight increase in new forbearance requests and re-entries,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “Servicer call volume jumped last week as summer came to an end and many borrowers reached the end of their forbearance terms. We anticipate a similarly fast pace of exits in the weeks ahead, which should lead to increased call volume and a further decline in the forbearance share.”
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 2020, and has trended down since then.

The MBA notes: "Total weekly forbearance requests as a percent of servicing portfolio volume (#) increased relative to the prior week: from 0.04% to 0.05%."