by Calculated Risk on 9/18/2020 08:28:00 AM

Note: Both Black Knight and the MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) are putting out weekly estimates of mortgages in forbearance.

This data is as of September 15th.

From Fourth Consecutive Week of Forbearance Improvement

Overall, the total number of mortgages in forbearance continued to improve this week, as the number of active plans declined another 26K (-0.7%). This marks the fourth consecutive week of improvement, and declining volumes for 10 of the past 12 weeks.

Click on graph for larger image.

As of September 15, just under 3.7M homeowners remain in COVID-19-related forbearance plans. That’s down more than 22% from the peak of over 4.7M in late May.

These loans represent 7% of the active mortgage universe, unchanged from last week. Together, they represent $781 billion in unpaid principal.

Active forbearances are now down 266K (-7%) over the past 30 days, as servicers continue to proactively assess the 1.7M forbearance plans still set to expire in September for extensions and removals.

Given the large number of plans in which September’s mortgage payment was the last payment covered under forbearance plan, we could see significant removal/extension activity over the next few weeks.
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