Social Distancing – in China is extremely deliberate. To enter the Disneyland park you need to: wear a mask, pass a temperature check, & pass an individual QR code check which provides data on your recent travel and spits out an algorithmic score of your infection risk based on movement.
Rates – increased nominally this week. They remain at levels a full percent lower from this time last year at historic lows.
Jobs – the jobs report for April showed a loss of 20.5M jobs. This report only includes data through the 18th of April and is the highest ever in a single report. While the unemployment rate is reported at 14.7% (up from 4.4%) if you include the jobless claims reports from the last two weeks more than likely we are already near 20%.
Appreciation – CoreLogic reported that home values increased by 1.3% in the month of March and 4.5% over the previous 12 months. Usually conservative in their predictions CoreLogic thinks that prices will remain the same over the coming 12 months (down from a previous prediction in the mid 4’s).
Forbearance – the Mortgage Bankers Association estimates that 7.54% of mortgages are in forbearance. Fortunately the acceleration has slowed significantly. It does vary between banks (highest) and non-bank servicers. Our company has a small portfolio of 30K loans and approximately 3% of them are in forbearance.
As a reminder as FHFA (conventional loan) guidelines are currently set you if you claim hardship forbearance, even if you make your mortgage payments, you will not be able to purchase a new home or refinance your home until you have come out of forbearance and made 12 consecutive payments. Currently even if you inquire about forbearance it will be recorded and you will need to provide proof from your servicer that it was just an inquiry.