Close to half a million low-income homeowners in the United States, many of them minorities, are nearing the end of mortgage forbearance plans that allowed them to halt loan payments during the pandemic.
The number of borrowers exiting the plans is expected to surge over coming weeks as people who signed up early on in the pandemic reach the 18-month limit for forbearance. While close to 80 percent of homeowners who entered programs at some point in the pandemic have since exited them, the remaining 20 percent tend to live in areas with higher shares of minorities, or have lower credit scores and lower incomes, research shows.
