Secondary marketing activity at the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. dropped by more than a quarter last month. While the government-controlled enterprise reduced home-loan delinquency again, past-due payments on apartment loans were up for the fifth consecutive month. The housing finance agency’s total mortgage portfolio fell below $2 trillion for the first time in five years.
July’s purchases and issuances at Freddie Mac totaled $32.549 billion, sinking from $44.103 billion in the previous month, according to monthly operational data released Friday from the McLean, Va.-based company.
Business, however, strengthened from July of last year, when purchases and issuances amounted to $20.727 billion.
From Jan. 1, 2012, through July 31, 2012, volume totaled $247.217 billion.
The total mortgage portfolio finished last month at $1.9976 trillion.
It was the first time that the portfolio fell below the $2 trillion threshold since August 2007 — when it stood at $1.9835 trillion.
As of June 2012, the portfolio was $2.0122 trillion, while it totaled $2.1207 trillion as of July 31, 2011.
The latest total consisted of an $0.5763 trillion mortgage investment portfolio and $1.4213 trillion in outstanding mortgage securities.
Residential delinquency of at least 90 days was 3.42 percent as of the end of July, better than 3.45 percent as of June 30. Delinquency has not increased since January, when the 90-day rate was 3.59 percent.
During July 2011, late payments on Freddie’s home loans were 3.51 percent.
But the news wasn’t so good for multifamily delinquency of a least 60 days, which climbed to 0.29 percent from 0.27 percent in June. In fact, multifamily delinquency has increased each month since February, when the rate was 0.21 percent.
Defaults on apartment loans, however, were better than 0.35 percent in July 2011.
