The effects of rising interest rates appear to have hit monthly agency issuance. The Federal National Mortgage Association took the biggest hit.
Issuance of fixed-rate mortgage-backed securities on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae was $94.316 billion in February.
That turned out to be the slowest month for securitizations of
agency home loans since February 2016, when the total came to $77.267 billion.
eMBS provided the data used in this story to Mortgage Daily.
In the first month of this year, issuance was $131.788 billion.
The plunge in agency issuance has come as 30-year fixed mortgage rates have soared to 4.16 percent in the week ended Feb. 23 from just 3.62 percent a year earlier, according to Freddie’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey.
So far in 2017, issuers of agency MBS have generated $226.104 billion in volume.
Last month’s biggest decline was at Washington-based Fannie, with fixed-rate issuance plunging one-third from January 2017 to $35.418 billion. Fannie’s issuance was up, though, by a quarter from February 2016.
Issuance of Fannie Mae MBS amounted to $88.158 billion in the first-two months of this year.
At the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., February 2017’s fixed-rate issuance fell 29 percent from a month earlier to $26.804 billion but rose 36 percent from a year earlier.
McLean-based Freddie’s year-to-date issuance totaled $64.543 billion.
The Government National Mortgage Association’s fixed-rate rate issuance tumbled 22 percent from January to $32.094 billion. Government-owned Ginnie’s issuance, however, accelerated 10 percent from the same month in 2016.
Washington-based Ginnie’s MBS issuance worked out to $73.403 billion in the two months ended Feb. 28, 2017.
