The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) monthly Loan Monitoring Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 3 basis points from 0.26% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior month to 0.23% as of December 31, 2023. According to MBA’s estimate, 115,000 homeowners are in forbearance plans. Mortgage servicers have provided forbearance to approximately 8.1 million borrowers since March 2020.
In December 2023, the share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance declined 1 basis point to 0.15%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance decreased 8 basis points to 0.39%, and the forbearance share for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) decreased 3 basis points to 0.27%.
“Forbearance as a loss mitigation option is diminishing,” said Marina Walsh, CMB, MBA’s Vice President of Industry Analysis. “While forbearance is a powerful tool for delinquency surges resulting from natural disasters or major disruptions such as a pandemic, today’s borrowers are not experiencing widespread financial distress. The overall performance of servicing portfolios – particularly government loans – declined in December. Factors such as seasonality, a changing labor market, resumption of student loan payments, and the rise in balances on other forms of consumer debt are likely at play.”
…
• By reason, 61.2% of borrowers are in forbearance for reasons such as a temporary hardship caused by job loss, death, divorce, or disability; while 26.8% of borrowers are in forbearance because of COVID-19. Another 12.0% are in forbearance because of a natural disaster.emphasis added
At the end of December, there were about 115,000 homeowners in forbearance plans.