New business had already fallen to the lowest level in nearly six years at the Government National Mortgage Association, but last month it went even lower. Deterioration would have been deeper were it not for an uptick in jumbo and reverse mortgage issuances.
Issuers of Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities generated $17.793 billion in volume during March.
It was the slowest month since March 2008, when reported securitizations were $15.144 billion.
February 2014’s issuances were $21.249 billion, while March 2013’s activity came in at $36.444 billion.
During the first three months of 2014, issuance of the Washington, D.C.-based company’s MBS amounted to $61.980 billion. Since its fiscal-year 2014 started on Oct. 1, 2013, MBSÂ issuance totaled $138.292 billion.
Residential issuance accounted for $16.625 billion of last month’s total, falling from $20.029 billion in the last report and $34.181 billion in the year-earlier report.
March’s residential issuances included $0.335 billion in jumbo issuance, climbing from $0.280 billion a month earlier.
Issuance of home-equity conversion mortgages rose to $0.510 billion from $0.494 billion in February.
On the multifamily side, issuance slipped to $1.168 billion from $1.221 billion and was off by nearly half from $2.263 billion in March 2013.
