Forbearance Plan Volumes Nudge Lower

Forbearance plan volumes continued their steady decline in the second week of April.

According to our McDash Flash daily mortgage performance dataset, the number of active forbearance plans decreased 7,300 (-1.1%). Loans held in bank portfolios and private label securities (PLS) fell by 9,400 (-4%). That drop was partially offset by an upward tick in GSE and FHA/VA plans (1,500, +0.8% and 600, +0.2% respectively).

New plan starts edged slightly higher, to 10,500. Restarts increased by 5,900 to 27,500.

As of April 12, 677,000 homeowners remain in COVID-19-related forbearance plans – 1.3% of all active mortgages. The group includes 0.7% of GSE mortgages, 2.0% of FHA/VA and 1.8% of portfolio held and privately securitized mortgages.

Plans are down by 48,100 (-6.6%) from the same time last month. The next opportunity for meaningful improvement will come in early May, as nearly 126,000 plans with an April expiration date are scheduled for review, with nearly a third expected to be reaching their final expirations.

With homeowners having exited more than 90% of 8.1 million total forbearance plans, Black Knight will be wrapping up our weekly Forbearance Tracker report at the end of April. We will continue to monitor the very latest forbearance data from the McDash Flash dataset and report our findings monthly in our Mortgage Monitor Report.