Thanks to a strong increase in business at the Federal National Mortgage Association, agency mortgage-backed securities issuance leapt to the highest level since mid-2009.
The collective issuance of fixed-rate MBS at Fannie Mae, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. and the Government National Mortgage Association was $148.232 billion during March.
Activity surged from $111.287 billion in February and soared from $88.740 billion during March 2011.
Based on data from eMBS, fixed-rate agency issuance has not been this much since July 2009, when the three housing finance agencies securitized $163.790 billion.
During the first three months of this year, agency issuance added up to $368.044 billion.
Behind last month’s strong performance was Fannie’s $83.941 is MBS issuance, growing from $51.411 billion a month earlier and $48.906 billion a year earlier. The last time the Washington, D.C.-based firm’s fixed-rate issuance was this high was June 2009’s $126.4 billion.
Issuance at Fannie totaled $188.375 billion during the first three months of 2012.
Freddie Mac’s volume rose to $38.491 billion — the highest level since December 2010’s $42.500 billion. Fixed-rate issuance at the McLean, Va.-based company was $35.410 billion in February and $20.834 billion in March 2011. Freddie’s year-to-date issuances amounted to $103.132 billion.
Issuers of Ginnie Mae securities put out $25.801 billion in fixed-rate MBS during March, more than $24.465 billion the prior month and $18.999 billion in the same month during the prior year. Ginnie’s volume between January and March aggregated $76.538 billion.
