Just a month after tumbling to the lowest level since 2014, issuance of agency mortgage-backed securities jumped to the highest level since last year.
During March, the issuance of fixed-rate MBS on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae worked out to $96.951 billion.
Agency MBS issuance accelerated compared to the previous month, when volume totaled $77.305 billion. February activity was the slowest since November 2014, when fixed-rate issuance came to an upwardly revised $75.734 billion.
MBS issuance also improved compared to one year prior, when there were an upwardly revised $95.443 billion in securitizations of Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie loans.
The statistics were provided to Mortgage Daily by eMBS.
For the first three months of 2016, there has been a total of $260.487 billion in agency MBS issuance.
At $27.066 billion, fixed-rate issuance at the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. was up 37 percent from February — the biggest month-over-month increase among any of the three companies.
Compared to March 2015, Freddie’s volume was up 13 percent — the largest year-over-year rise.
During the three months ended March 31, 2016, issuance at McLean, Virginia-based Freddie amounted to $68.705 billion.
A a more than one-third improvement over February left the Federal National Mortgage
Association’s fixed-rate issuance last month at $38.018 billion.
The Washington-based firm’s volume, however, declined 9 percent from March 2015.
So far this year, Fannie’s issuances total $99.559 billion.
The Government National Mortgage Association experienced a 9 percent increase from a month earlier, putting March’s fixed-rate issuance at $31.867 billion.
The government-owned corporation had a 6 percent year-over-year increase.
From Jan. 1, 2016, through March 31,
there were $92.223 billion in Ginnie Mae MBS issued.
