Quarterly mortgage financing provided by Fannie Mae fell by more than $30 billion from a year earlier, though activity has accelerated from three months earlier. Earnings were little changed.
The Federal National Mortgage Association disclosed in its third-quarter earnings report $4.5 billion in income before federal income taxes.
Earnings were modestly lower than $4.7 billion during the same three months last year. It was a similar narrative versus the second quarter of this year, when earnings were $4.8 billion.
For all three quarters so far in 2017, earnings totaled $13.9 billion.
The pre-tax third-quarter provision for single-family credit losses from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria was around $1.0 billion — with 80 percent related to single-family loans in Puerto Rico.
But $975 million from a settlement with Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc somewhat offset the hurricane charges. The settlement is related to private-label mortgage-backed securities issued between 2005 and 2007 that were acquired by Fannie.
The secondary mortgage lender said it was the largest provider of mortgage market liquidity, with around $150 billion in single-family and multifamily financing during the third quarter, not as much as $184 billion one year earlier but more than $135 billion three months earlier.
Fannie’s latest activities financed around 776,000 housing units
— including 358,000 single-family purchase financing loans, 229,000 single-family refinances and 189,000 multifamily units. Year-to-date units total 2.214 million.
The government-controlled enterprise said it was
the largest issuer of single-family mortgage-related securities during the third-quarter 2017 with an estimated market share of 39 percent. Ginnie Mae’s share was 34 percent, Freddie Mac’s was 24 percent and private-label securities’ was 3 percent.
Fannie reported that as of mid-2017, it owned or guaranteed around a fifth of all multifamily debt.
Dividends paid to the Treasury since conservatorship and through Sept. 30, 2017, amounted to $165.8 billion, while draws came to $116.1 billion. A $3.0 billion dividend payment is expected to be made during December if the Federal Housing Finance Agency declares one.
