Fewer Americans having coronavirus-related mortgage payment problems
About 4.2M Americans have forbearance plans
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As more states begin to reopen their economies, fewer Americans are requesting to temporarily put their mortgage loan payments on pause.
The share of homeowners with forbearance plans increased to 8.36 percent as of May 17, according to new data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, up from 8.16 percent the week prior.
“Although job losses continue at extremely high rates, mortgage servicers are reporting only modest increases in the share of loans in forbearance as of May 17,” Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s senior vice president and chief economist, said in a statement.
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Job losses, however, appear to be hitting Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Affairs borrowers harder than others – as the share of Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance rose to 11.6 percent, the data showed.
About 38.6 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the past nine weeks, but requests for temporary payment pauses decreased for the sixth consecutive week. Requests for plans as of May 17 were at their lowest level since the middle of March.
Overall, about 4.2 million Americans are in forbearance plans.
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As previously reported by FOX Business, about 3.6 million homeowners were past due on mortgage payments as of the end of April, according to data from Black Knight, which is the highest amount since January 2015. The national delinquency rate reached 6.45 percent, up almost double (3.06 percent) from March – and the largest monthly increase ever recorded. Those numbers, however, include people who have forbearance plans.
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Meanwhile, a survey showed that the majority of people who requested forbearance plans may not have needed to. Only about 5 percent of homeowners that were approved for a forbearance agreement said they would not have been able to meet their obligations otherwise, according to data from LendingTree.
Mortgage purchase application activity has also begun to pick up – an early indicator that the housing market may be primed to bounce back once state economies reopen and begin to normalize.