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For the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of homes in a forbearance plan has fallen below the 2% mark.
According to Black Knight’s McDash Flash daily mortgage performance dataset, which covers more than 197 million home loans and home equity data on more than 27 million loans and lines of credit, the number of loans in active forbearance fell by 123,000 or 10.8%.
The data shows that as of November 9, 1.01 million mortgage holders remain in COVID-19 related forbearance plans, representing 1.9% of all active mortgages, including 1.2% of GSE, 3.1% of FHA/VA, and 2.4% of portfolio/PLS loans.
When broken down into loan type, the strongest declines were among loans held in bank portfolios and private-label securities, which fell by 59,000 or 15.9%. FHA/VA loans fell as well by 48,000 or 11.3% while homes with GSE loans that were in forbearance fell by 16,000 or 4.8%.
But as more plans reach their conclusion or expire, Black Knight predicts continued improvement over the coming weeks.
“Nearly 300,000 borrowers have left their plans over the past two weeks down from 455,000 over the same two-week period last month as we hit the downslope of exit activity,” the report said. “That said, more than 250,000 plans are still listed with October/November reviews for extension/removal. Half of those are expected to reach final expiration, which could lead to continued improvement, albeit at a slower pace, in the weeks ahead.”
“Plan entries were down 9% from a week ago, logging one of the lowest weeks in terms of new entries since the onset of the pandemic.”
