Distressed

Evaluations for payment reduction still represent a relatively small share of home retention actions but their uptick could add incrementally to servicers’ workloads.

The strength of the housing market helped to increase forbearance exits while minimizing new requests, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

So far companies plan on using roughly the same number of employees as they shift from handling payment suspensions to assessing borrowers who have seen long-term declines in their incomes.

Experts expect only a small uptick in distressed mortgages, either through default or inability to refinance, which will create some opportunity for debt buyers

About 20% of the pandemic-related delinquent borrowers are up for review by the end of June, which could lead to vast improvement or deeper financial strife, according to Black Knight.

Consumer-permissioned access to bank or payroll information could be used to evaluate borrowers who still need relief after payment suspensions for pandemic-related hardships end.

Although activity crept down in May from April, it posted “dramatic” increases from the year before, according to Attom Data Solutions.

The guidance addresses confusion related to how lenders should handle situations in which borrowers have not paid for a year and need additional help due to a natural disaster.

Meanwhile, National MI has been increasing its new insurance written by slightly widening its credit standards.

But March's overall late payment rate was 1.3 percentage points higher than one year ago, while the 90-day-plus rate was 2.3 percentage points higher.

The four-week high in forbearance exits also helped drive the considerable drop in plans, according to Black Knight.

While there was a small uptick in missed payments for multifamily loans, the rate remained in the same area it's been at for the last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The ongoing CARES Act foreclosure moratoria may have led to distressed borrowers abandoning their homes, according to Attom Data Solutions.

Mortgage forbearances rose for only the second week in the past three months but big drops in numbers could be on the horizon, according to Black Knight.

For the first time since the pandemic began, the share of borrowers who are 30 days or more late on their payment is below 5%, Black Knight found.

Issuance of capital market instruments aimed at protecting one government-sponsored enterprise from distressed mortgage credit events staged a relatively quick rebound in 2020, a new Federal Housing Finance Agency report shows.

The rate of new forbearance requests as a share of portfolio volume also dropped to its lowest point since March, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported.

Most of the activity covered vacant and abandoned properties or commercial loans, according to Attom Data Solutions.

Altisource Portfolio Solutions’ bottom line took a larger hit in the first quarter compared to Q4 2020, causing the company to cut costs.

Rents are soaring in many U.S. cities as the economy rebounds, squeezing the budgets of tenants who also face increased risk of eviction after courts overturned a pandemic-era ban from the Center for Disease Control.