Not much to report with this week’s snapshot of our McDash Flash daily Forbearance Tracker data, as we’ve come to expect in the mid-month period. 

Last week’s slight net decline of just 1,000 was matched by a 2,000 increase in the number of active forbearance plans over the past seven days, leaving volumes essentially flat for the second week in a row.  

As of July 20, 1.86 million borrowers remain in COVID-19 forbearance plans, making up 3.5% of all active mortgages and 2.1% of GSE, 6.2% of FHA/VA and 4.1% of Portfolio/PLS loans. 

What weekly improvement there was – among GSE forbearance plans (-8,000) – was more than offset by a 9,000 rise among portfolio/PLS forbearances and 1,000 additional FHA plans. 

All in, this puts the number of loans in active forbearance down 198,000 (-9.6%) from the same time last month. Some 230,000 plans are still scheduled to be reviewed for extension/removal in July, down from roughly 400,000 last week. 

Restarts remained elevated this week, while new forbearance plan volumes continue remain low. Removals held steady week to week and remain on the lower end of the spectrum – as we typically see in the middle of the month – while plan extensions hit the lowest level since late February. 

We will continue to monitor the very latest forbearance data from the McDash Flash dataset and report our findings each week on this blog. For monthly deep dives into the matter, be sure to look for our Mortgage Monitor report on the first Monday of every month.