Morning Report: Almost 3 million homeowners request forbearance

Vital Statistics:

Stocks are lower this morning as people watch the price of oil collapse. Bonds and MBS are up small.

Oil is down huge this morning. Why? Nowhere to put it. We are getting back towards the late 90s, when the Economist put out its famous “drowning in oil” cover, which marked the bottom of the oil market. Note that it is the May contract, which expires this week that is down so much. Since it is no longer front month, it isn’t really actively traded and therefore not representative of the true price of oil in the markets. The June contract is trading around 22 bucks. Ironic that we are headed into the summer driving season with oil at the lowest in a generation, but there is nowhere to go.

No major economic data this week, aside from initial jobless claims. We do get some real estate data with existing home sales, new home sales, and the FHFA House Price Index. The NY Fed is decreasing its TBA purchases to $10 billion per day.

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index was flashing “recession” in March, falling to -4.17. (Anything under -0.7 is considered recessionary). Mohammed El-Arian says the economy could contract 14% in 2020. Citi also warns that the markets aren’t pricing in a second wave of infections.

Almost 3 million people have asked for mortgage forbearance under the CARES Act. This represents 5.5% of all active mortgages. This is 4.9% of all Fannie / Freddie loans and 7.6% of FHA / VA loans. So far servicers are getting crushed by this. “It’s frankly frustrating and ridiculous that we do not have a solution in place,” said Jay Bray, CEO of Mr. Cooper, one of the nation’s larger mortgage servicers, who consulted with the Trump administration to set up the bailout. “When we were working on the Act, we had liquidity in it, and it did not make it into the Act. We were told it would be handled through the administration, and it’s a real problem.”

Last week Senators Sherrod Brown and Maxine Waters sent a letter to the Administration:  “The government must be prepared to respond quickly to prevent a liquidity shortfall in the single-family and multifamily mortgage markets, and to ensure that consumers are equitably served by that response. Any liquidity provided must be used to stabilize the market at a time when many families may fall behind on payments and facilitate relief to individual homeowners and renters throughout the market through forbearance, loss mitigation, and protection from displacement, rather than immediate defaults and evictions.”

Civil Rights and fair housing groups are also requesting a facility for servicers. While it seem unusual for the Professional Left to go to bat for servicers, they sense that if no facility is set up, no one will want to do FHA loans in the future. FHA business is severely restricted at the moment.

Author: Brent Nyitray

In the physical sciences, knowledge is cumulative. In the financial markets, it is cyclical View all posts by Brent Nyitray