by Calculated Risk on 9/27/2021 04:00:00 PM

Note: This is as of September 19th.

From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Decreases to 2.96%

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 4 basis points from 3.00% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 2.96% as of September 19, 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 3 basis points to 1.44%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance increased 3 basis points to 3.42%, and the forbearance share for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) decreased 4 basis points to 6.91%. The percentage of loans in forbearance for independent mortgage bank (IMB) servicers decreased 1 basis point relative to the prior week to 3.24%, and the percentage of loans in forbearance for depository servicers decreased 4 basis points to 3.06%.

“The share of loans in forbearance continued to decrease last week, dropping below 3 percent for the first time since March 2020,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “However, there was a slight increase in the forbearance share for Ginnie Mae loans, and this increase was seen for both depository and IMB servicers. New forbearance requests and re-entries continue to run at a higher rate for Ginnie Mae loans as well as for portfolio and PLS loans, which include many delinquent FHA, VA, and USDA loans that have been bought out of Ginnie Mae pools.”
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 (#) remained the same relative to the prior week at 0.05%."