That 5% monthly decline represents the strongest rate of improvement since late November 2020 and is a direct result of servicers working through the 1.2 million plans that entered this month with scheduled March month-end expirations for extension and/or removal.

It is important to note that even with such strong monthly improvement, there are still more than 46,000 active plans with March month-end expirations, which provides the potential for additional improvement in coming weeks.

As of March 23, 2.57 million homeowners remain in forbearance, representing 4.9% of all homeowners with mortgages.

This week’s improvement was driven by improvements among both GSE (-21,000) and FHA/VA plans (-10,000), while active plan volumes rose among portfolio/PLS mortgages (+12,000).

Early extension activity suggests servicers continue to approach forbearance plans in three-month increments, with the bulk of would-be March expirations being extended out through June.

Plan extensions have accounted for 75% of all extension/removal activity in recent weeks, but removals are up simply as a result of the volume of expirations that were scheduled for this month.

Early extension activity suggests servicers continue to approach forbearance plans in three-month increments, with the bulk of would-be March expirations being extended out through June.

Black Knight's McDash Flash Payment Tracker shows that 90.7% of observed borrowers had made their payment through March 22, up from 89.8% at the same time in February.