Temporary mortgage forbearance was a critical stopgap for multifamily property owners during the pandemic, particularly for smaller, non-institutional mom-and-pop owners, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. 

In the pre-pandemic days of 2020, the FHA and RHS reported having no multifamily loans in forbearance—but by June, thanks largely to a provision of the CARES Act requiring servicers to provide up to 90 days of forbearance for multifamily properties with federally backed mortgages, about 7.3% of loans backed by the agencies and enterprises were under a forbearance agreement. That number began a slow decline for the remainder of the year, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reporting in December that about 0.4% and 2.3% of their respective total unpaid balances for multifamily loans were in forbearance.

Forbearance rates were highest among smaller properties, with 5.4% of FHA- or enterprise-backed properties with five to nine units under forbearance, as opposed to about 1.% among properties with 50 or more units.