Monthly business sank to it lowest level in more than three years at Fannie Mae, while delinquency reached its highest level in at least eight years.
New business acquisitions during August were $40.5 billion, data released Tuesday indicated. Volume fell from $42.4 billion the prior month and $65.0 billion the prior year.
Business hasn’t been this bad since February 2005 when purchases totaled $40.2 billion.
The decreased activity reflected an urgent move to conserve capital as the secondary lender, faced with a liquidity crisis in August, turned to the U.S. Treasury Department for help. Both Fannie and its government sponsored cousin Freddie Mac were placed into conservatorship on Sept. 7 by their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
From January through August, business acquisitions were $474.0 billion.
Fannie’s total book of business ended August at $3.059 trillion, climbing from $3.048 trillion at the end of July. The book consisted of an $0.760 trillion gross mortgage portfolio and $2.299 trillion in outstanding mortgage-backed securities.
Residential delinquency of at least 90 days, reported on a one-month lag, was 1.45 percent on July 31, climbing from 1.36 percent on June 30 and 0.68 percent at the end of July 2007.
Delinquency has risen each month since May 2007, when it stood at 0.62 percent, and it hasn’t been this high since prior to 2001 — the oldest data available at MortgageDaily.com.
The Washington, D.C.-based company’s duration gap stood at two months in August.
