by Calculated Risk on 9/18/2023 04:07:00 PM

From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Decreases to 0.33% in August

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) monthly Loan Monitoring Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 6 basis points from 0.39% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior month to 0.33% as of August 31, 2023. According to MBA’s estimate, 165,000 homeowners are in forbearance plans. Mortgage servicers have provided forbearance to approximately 7.92 million borrowers since March 2020.

In August, the share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance decreased 1 basis point to 0.19%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance decreased 15 basis points to 0.65%, and the forbearance share for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) decreased 6 basis points to 0.39%.

“The forbearance rate is just 8 basis points shy of where it was at the beginning of March 2020, which indicates that most homeowners have recovered from the pandemic,” said Marina Walsh, CMB, MBA’s Vice President of Industry Analysis. “While there was a monthly decline in the performance of post-forbearance workouts in August, overall mortgage servicing portfolios remain resilient. Compared to other credit types with weaker performance, the percentage of home mortgages that are performing is holding steady at a non-seasonally adjusted 96 percent.”
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the percent of portfolio in forbearance by investor type over time.

The share of forbearance plans has been decreasing and declined to 0.33% in August from 0.39% in July.

At the end of July, there were about 165,000 homeowners in forbearance plans.