Of the 4.25 million homeowners who were in forbearance at the end of April, nearly half of them actually made their monthly mortgage payment anyway.
As of this week, 4.75 million homeowners are in government or private sector mortgage forbearance programs, according to Black Knight. That is equivalent to 9% of all mortgages outstanding. New analysis, however, shows a large share of these borrowers initially didn’t need the bailout, but now more do.
These forbearance programs, most of which are on government-backed loans, allow borrowers to miss monthly payments for at least three months. Those payments must be made up in the future through various options.
While the number of new borrowers entering the plan has slowed dramatically since the start of the programs in early April, Black Knight found a surprising twist in the data: Of the 4.25 million homeowners who were in forbearance at the end of April, nearly half of them actually made their monthly mortgage payment anyway, while 54% did not.
Things changed significantly, however, in May. As of May 19, just 21% of those in forbearance plans had made their May payments. This means that about 1.4 million homeowners who were in forbearance but made their April payments are now at risk of becoming delinquent on their loans in May. This explains why the national delinquency rate, which did make an unprecedented monthly jump in April was not as high as expected.