The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance increased about 500,000 from the previous week – half the increase reported a week earlier.
MBA’s survey found 6.99 percent of all servicers’ volume was in forbearance, a total of about 3.5 million loans nationwide.
The total increased from 5.95 percent of servicers’ volume a week earlier, and is up from 12,450 loans in forbearance at the beginning of March.
“Over 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the last month, leading to nearly 7 percent – 3.5 million – of all mortgage borrowers asking to be put into forbearance plans. For FHA and VA borrowers, the share of loans in forbearance is even higher, at 10 percent,” MBA Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni said in a news release. “Forbearance requests fell relative to the prior week but remain roughly 100 times greater than the early March baseline. While the pace of job losses have slowed from the astronomical heights of just a few weeks ago, millions of people continue to file for unemployment. We expect forbearance requests will pick up again as we approach May payment due dates.”
Mortgages backed by Ginnie Mae once again showed the largest growth from the prior week, up 1.47 percent to 9.73 percent of its total portfolio. Freddie Mac has 5.46 percent of its loans in forbearance, while Fannie Mae is at 4.64 percent.
Depository institutions had 7.87 percent of loans in forbearance, while that total was 6.25 percent for independent mortgage bank servicers.
“The combination of stimulus payments, expanded unemployment insurance benefits, further fiscal and monetary actions, and states reopening will hopefully begin to stabilize forbearance requests and the overall economy,” Fratantoni said.