Shares of Mortgages in Forbearance Decline for 20th Consecutive Week in the Week Ending July 11, 2021

The latest Mortgage Banker Association’s (MBA) Forbearance and Call Survey reports that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 26 basis points from 3.76% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 3.50% as of July 11, 2021. According to MBA’s estimate, 1.75 million homeowners are in forbearance plans. The share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance decreased 8 basis points to 1.83%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance decreased 42 basis points to 4.36%, while the forbearance shares for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) decreased 61 basis points to 7.33%. The percentage of loans in forbearance for independent mortgage bank (IMB) servicers decreased 19 basis points to 3.68%, and the percentage of loans in forbearance for depository servicers decreased 36 basis points to 3.62%.

In remarks prepared for the release of this week’s forbearance survey, Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, said, “Forbearance exits edged up again last week and new forbearance requests dropped to their lowest level since last March, leading to the largest weekly drop in the forbearance share since last October and the 20th consecutive week of declines. The forbearance share decreased for every investor and servicer category.” Fratantoni went onto say that “The latest economic data regarding the job market and consumer spending continue to show a robust pace of economic recovery, which is supporting further improvements in the forbearance numbers as more homeowners are able to resume their payments.”