This marks five consecutive weeks of improvement and puts us 24% off the peak in late May, a decline of 1.17 million plans since then.

As of September 22, 3.6 million homeowners remain in COVID-19-related forbearance plans, or 6.8% of all active mortgages, down from 7% last week. Together, they represent $751 billion in unpaid principal.

Servicers continue to proactively assess September-scheduled forbearance expirations for extensions and removals. As of the 22nd, 1.1 million forbearance plans are still set to expire this month, down from 1.7 million just last week.

With more than a million forbearance plans for which September’s mortgage payment was the last payment covered under forbearance plan, significant removal/extension activity is still likely over the next few weeks.

Some 4.8% of all GSE-backed loans and 11.1% of all FHA/VA loans are currently in forbearance plans. Another 7.1% of loans in private label securities or banks’ portfolios are also in forbearance.

The week’s decline was primarily driven by forbearance plans among portfolio-held mortgages, which saw a 51,000 (-8%) decline from last week. During that same period, GSE loans fell 20,000 (-2.3%) while FHA/VA loans were down 17,000 (1.2%).

Over the past month, active forbearance volumes are now down by 9%, with 357,000 fewer active COVID-19 forbearance plans than at the same time in August. Of the 3.6 million loans still in active forbearance, some 78% have had their terms extended at some point since March.