Ginnie Mae mortgage securitizations tumbled to the slowest pace in 24 months, dragging down overall monthly agency issuance also to a 2-year low.
Issuance of fixed-rate mortgage-backed securities on behalf of Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac and Ginnie came to $90.050 billion during February.
Last month’s volume turned out to be the lowest level of monthly agency securitizations since
February 2016, when MBS issued on behalf of the trio worked out to $77.267 billion.
Securitization volume was $100.114 billion the first month of this year, bringing year-to-date 2018 volume to $190.164 billion. Issuance was $94.250 billion during the second month of last year.
eMBS, which delivers data and analytics to MBS market participants, provided the data to Mortgage Daily.
Compared to January 2018, fixed-rate issuance at the Federal National Mortgage Association was down 14 percent to $39.028 billion — its slowest month since May 2017. Activity, however, was up a 10th from February 2017.
During the two months ended Feb. 28, issuance of the Washington-based company’s MBS amounted to $84.570 billion.
With $29.929 billion in securitizations during February, issuance of MBS on behalf of the Government National Mortgage Association was the least it’s been since February 2016. Last month’s activity declined 11 percent from a month earlier and was down 7 percent from a year earlier.
Government-owned Ginnie, which also is based in the District of Columbia, has seen $63.531 billion in securitizations during the first-two months of this year.
A 1 percent rise in fixed-rate issuance from January at the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. left last month’s total at $21.092 billion. The McLean, Virginia-based company’s issuance sank 21 percent, though, from February 2017.
So far in 2018, Freddie’s issuance totals $42.063 billion.
