New Data on the Characteristics of Mortgage Borrowers During the COVID-19 Pandemic
In a May 2021 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) report, we used data from the National Mortgage Database (NMDB®) to report on the characteristics of mortgage borrowers during the COVID-19 pandemic based on the account status of borrowers reported through March 2021. The focus of this latest report is to understand the mortgage characteristics and demographics of borrowers who remained in forbearance in January 2022. As in the May report, our sample of borrowers comes from the NMDB, which is a random 1-in-20 sample of closed-end first-lien mortgages in the United States. We analyze borrower demographic and loan characteristics for a sample of more than 2 million mortgage loans for owner-occupied properties. The data include borrower-level demographics and loan-level origination and performance information. Overall, our January 2022 sample of borrowers had a forbearance rate of 1.3 percent, compared to 4.7 percent in the March 2021 sample used in our May 2021 report.