Virtually no government support was required by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. during the first three months of 2012. The quality of the company’s portfolio has improved significantly over the past seven years.
Freddie Mac reported a first-quarter profit of $577 million.
Earnings were off from $619 million in the final three months of last year as a result of higher derivative losses and lower net interest income.
In the same three-month period a year earlier, the McLean, Va.-based company earned $676 million.
Factoring in comprehensive income, earnings jump to $1.789 billion from the fourth quarter’s $1.506 billion.
A net worth deficit as of March 31 required Freddie to request $0.019 billion from the Department of the Treasury — a drop in the bucket compared to the $72.300 billion in cumulative draws since being thrown into conservatorship in 2008.
Freddie has made $18.3 billion in cumulative dividend payments to the Treasury Department, including $1.8 billion in the first quarter.
Since the Home Affordable Refinance Program launched in early 2009, HARPÂ purchases at the government-controlled enterprise totaled 565,000 loans for $124 billion.
During that same period, workouts were achieved on 656,299 single family loans — including 358,172 loan modifications, 108,931 repayment plans and 72,394 forbearance agreements. In addition, 116,802 short-sale and deed-in-lieu of foreclosure transactions were included.
Freddie said it supported financing on 577,373 housing units during the first quarter. Last year’s total was 1,862,446, slower than in 2010 when the number was 2,122,295. Multifamily units accounted for 86,431 of the first quarter total and 320,753 of the 2011 figure.
Based on monthly operational data previously released by Freddie, first-quarter purchases and issuances were $114.0 billion, stronger than $102.2 billion in the fourth quarter and $104.7 billion in the first-quarter 2011.
Freddie’s total mortgage portfolio stood at $2.0565 trillion as of March 31, according to the earlier data.
The weighted-average original loan-to-value ratio on the single-family credit guarantee portfolio purchases sat at 66 percent during the first quarter — the lowest level since at least 2005.
Meanwhile, the 763 weighted-average credit score was the highest average score during that period.
