A month-over-month decline to a new 2-year low in agency issuance was led by Fannie Mae, even though Ginnie Mae’s securitizations fell to a three-year low.
Between
Fannie, Freddie Mac and government-owned Ginnie, issuance of fixed-rate mortgage-backed securities worked out to $83.288 billion in March.
Last month’s MBS securitizations on behalf of the trio of government-controlled companies turned out to be least since
February 2016, when the total was $77.267 billion.
That was based on historical data provided to Mortgage Daily from eMBS, which delivers statistics and analytics to MBS market participants.
Agency issuance was $90.050 billion in February 2018 and $90.936 billion in March 2017.
From Jan. 1, 2018, through March 31, agency issuance amounted to $273.446 billion.
The biggest month-over-month decline was recorded for the Federal National Mortgage Association: 12 percent to $34.382 billion.
Issuance was down 8 percent on a year-over-year basis.
During the first quarter of this year, there were $118.953 billion in fixed-rate MBS issued on behalf of Washington-based Fannie.
A 6 percent decline from February 2018 left Washington-based Ginnie’s fixed-rate issuance at $27.994 billion — the slowest month since February 2015’s $22.899 billion. Ginnie’s activity has fallen 8 percent from March of last year.
In the three months ended March 31, 2018, issuance on behalf of the Government National Mortgage Association came to $91.525 billion.
A the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., fixed-rate MBS issuance slipped less than percent from a month earlier to $20.911 billion last month, while volume declined by a 10th from a year earlier.
McLean, Virginia-based Freddie’s year-to-date issuance worked out to $62.969 billion.
