For the second month in a row, agency issuance soared to the highest level in three years. This time it was the Federal National Mortgage Association that led the gain.
During the month of August, fixed-rate mortgage backed securities that were issued on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae came in at $135.436 billion.
Based on historical data, the last time that MBS issuance for the three government-controlled firms was this high was in  July 2013, when the total was $139.366 billion.
eMBS provided the statistics to Mortgage Daily.
Securitizations were $126.884 billion in July 2016, also the highest level during the prior three years, and a downwardly revised $105.546 billion in August 2015.
During the first-eight months of this year, fixed-rate agency issuance amounted to $859.255 billion.
The biggest month-over-month gain — 12 percent — was with Fannie, where last month’s fixed-rate issuance totaled $52.950 billion. Compared to a year earlier, volume soared 42 percent — the biggest year-over-year increase among the three companies.
From Jan. 1 through Aug. 31 of this year, issuance of MBS on behalf of Washington-based Fannie came to $330.096 billion.
A 7 percent increase from July 2016 left fixed-rate issuance at the Federal home Loan Mortgage Corp. at $37.210 billion. Freddie’s securitizations have skyrocketed 41 percent from August 2015.
McLean, Virginia-based Freddie’s issuances during the eight months ended Aug. 31 worked out to $224.834 billion.
The Government National Mortgage Association’s fixed-rate MBS issuances were $45.276 billion in August 2016, up a percent from a month earlier and 8 percent from a year earlier.
Year-to-date volume at Washington-based Ginnie stands at $304.325 billion.
