Shares of Mortgages in Forbearance Increase in Week Ending February 21, 2021

The latest Mortgage Banker Association’s (MBA) Forbearance and Call Survey reports that the total number of loans now in forbearance increased by 1 basis point from 5.22% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 5.23% as of February 21, 2021. According to MBA’s estimate, 2.6 million homeowners are in forbearance plans. The share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance remained flat relative to the prior week at 2.97%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance increased 3 basis points to 7.35%, while the forbearance shares for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) increased by 9 basis points to 9.03%. The percentage of loans in forbearance for independent mortgage bank (IMB) servicers increased 3 basis points to 5.57%, and the percentage of loans in forbearance for depository servicers increased 1 basis point to 5.29%. Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist in a prepared statement said, “A small increase in new forbearance requests, coupled with exits decreasing to match a survey low, led to the overall share of loans in forbearance increasing for the first time in five weeks. The largest rise in the forbearance share was for portfolio and PLS loans, due to increases for both Ginnie Mae buyouts and other portfolio/PLS loans.” Fratantoni added, “The winter storm that impacted Texas and other states did lead to some temporary disruptions at servicer call centers, but these centers quickly returned to full operations.”