MBA Survey: "Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Decreases to 3.00%"

Note: This is as of September 12th.

From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Decreases to 3.00%

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 8 basis points from 3.08% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 3.00% as of September 12, 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 5 basis points to 1.47%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance remained the same relative to the prior week at 3.39%, and the forbearance share for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) decreased 32 basis points to 6.95%. The percentage of loans in forbearance for independent mortgage bank (IMB) servicers decreased 8 basis points to 3.25%, and the percentage of loans in forbearance for depository servicers decreased 5 basis points to 3.10%.

“The share of loans in forbearance decreased by 8 basis points last week, as forbearance exits remained elevated and new forbearance requests and re-entries were unchanged,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “20% of loans in forbearance are either new forbearance requests or re-entries. At this point, borrowers in forbearance extensions are exiting at a faster rate as they near – or reach – the expiration of their maximum forbearance term.”
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%."