Nearly 3 million Americans have stopped making their mortgage payments as the coronavirus pandemic keeps the nation's businesses shuttered and workers confined at home, according to a report by CBS News, citing a new analysis by the Mortgage Bankers Association.
As of April 12, about 6% of mortgages across the nation were past due by at least a month and in forbearance, according to the data.
The number of delinquent homeowners has risen dramatically since the first week in March, when there were only 0.25% of loans that were overdue by a month. Last week the number increased to 3.7%.
Banks are expecting the number to rise again after forbearance requests increased by 2% last week.
“You might have seen this high of a share in Houston after Hurricane Harvey, but it was always a local phenomenon,” MBA’s chief economist Mike Fratantoni told CBS. “What’s different this time is it’s national.”
Fratantoni said the U.S. government’s stimulus efforts could lessen the impact for households, but how much remains to be seen.
“As we get to the time when May payments are due, I expect to see those numbers going up again,” he told CBS. “We are hopeful that, now that some of the stimulus payments are arriving and unemployment benefits are expanded, that can provide some cushion to keep these numbers from going higher too fast.”
As of last week, more than 22 million Americans had filed for jobless benefits.
Many homeowners have already made claims under the $2 trillion economic stimulus package, which prohibits evictions and allows mortgage payments to be reduced or deferred for 12 months with no penalties, but only if the loans are backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
No such protections are in the CARES Act for mortgages not backed by the government, which is about half of all mortgages nationwide, according to CBS.
So far, 4.64% of mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in forbearance, along with 8.2% of mortgages backed by Ginnie Mae.
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