According to Black Knight, as of April 16, more than 2.9 million homeowners are in forbearance plans, representing 5.5% of all active mortgages.
Together, they account for $651 billion in unpaid principal and includes 4.9% of all GSE-backed loans and 7.6% of all FHA/VA loans.
Remember: regardless of a borrower’s forbearance status, servicers of loans in government-backed securities must make advance principal and interest (P&I) payments each month for these loans.
At today’s level, mortgage servicers would need to advance $2.3 billion/month to holders of government-backed mortgage securities on COVID-19-related forbearances. Another $1.1 billion in lost funds will be faced each month by those with portfolio-held or privately securitized mortgages (nearly 5% of these loans are in forbearance as well).
While Ginnie Mae has announced a pass-through assistance program through which it will advance principal and interest payments to investors on behalf of servicers, at present there is no such program in place for mortgages backed by the GSEs.
Not surprisingly, Fannie and Freddie have the largest amount of loans if forbearance (4.9%). But the FHA & VA have 7.6% of loans in forbearance.
And according to Redfin, pending homes sales YoY are down almost 50%.
PLEASE let the economy open up soon!!!