Fannie Mae (FNMA)

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Fannie/Freddie Issuance Slips in May, but Purchase Business Finally Takes Hold

By John Bancroft
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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued $74.10 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during May, down 8.0 percent from April, a new Inside The GSEs analysis reveals.
The purchase-mortgage market picked up some last month, but not enough to offset a sharp 15.7 percent drop in the volume of refinance loans securitized by the GSEs. Purchase-mortgage business was up 7.2 percent from April and reached a combined $28.25 billion – the highest monthly volume since the end of last year’s homebuying season in October.
For the first five months of 2015, purchase-mortgage activity totaled $105.15 billion, up 19.0 percent from the same period last year. Most of the big gain in overall GSE business has come from refinancing, which is up 94.4 percent on a year-to-date basis, but now appears to be slowing down.
Freddie had a better month in May than Fannie. Freddie’s total MBS issuance was off just 1.9 percent from April’s level, and it featured a hefty 15.1 percent jump in purchase-mortgage activity. Fannie’s total volume dropped 12.4 percent last month. For more details and an exclusive ranking of the top GSE sellers, see Inside The GSEs, now available online.