Business rose to the highest level in five months at the Federal National Mortgage Association, while delinquency fell to a nearly eight-year low.
New business acquisitions at the government-controlled enterprise totaled $40.906 billion during March. Volume improved from the prior month, when acquisitions amounted to $35.948 billion.
The last time that secondary mortgage lending activity was this high at the Washington-based organization was back in October of last year, when the total came to $41.938 billion.
But Fannie Mae’s business slowed compared to March 2015, when there were $45.874 billion in new business acquisitions.
The latest performance data was presented in Fannie’s Monthly Summary March 2016.
For the first-three months of this year, new business acquisitions totaled
$115.177 billion.
As of March 31, 2016, the total book of business stood at $3.1020 trillion. The balance increased from a month earlier, when it was $3.0980 trillion. But it declined from a year earlier, when the total was $3.1226 trillion.
The most-recent book of business consisted of $2.7693 trillion in total outstanding Fannie Mae mortgage-backed securities and a gross mortgage portfolio of $0.3326 trillion.
On the residential portion of its portfolio, delinquency of at least 90 days was 1.44 percent —
the lowest it’s been since June 2008, when the rate was 1.36 percent.
Serious mortgage delinquency was 1.52 percent as of Feb. 29, 2016, and 1.78 percent as of March 31, 2015.
Multifamily delinquency of at least 60 days fell to 0.06 percent from 0.07 percent and was down 3 basis points from the same point last year.
