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Freddie Funds $28B in Mortgages

Freddie Mac [1]’s total mortgage portfolio increased over the year, rising at an annualized rate of 0.5 percent between April 2016 and April 2017, according to the April Monthly Volume Summary released by Freddie Mac on Tuesday. Though the jump does mark year-over-year growth for the government-sponsored enterprise, April’s annual increase is significantly lower than March’s, which came in at 4.8 percent. December 2016 saw a 10 percent annualized growth rate.

In total, Freddie Mac completed $28 billion in mortgage purchases or issuances, $4.1 billion in sales, and $23 billion in liquidations for the month of April. The balance of Freddie’s mortgage portfolio by the end of the month was just over $2 trillion. The GSE has funded $127 billion in mortgages year-to-date.

Total aggregate unpaid principal balance (UPB) of Freddie Mac’s mortgage-related investments portfolio declined in April, dropping $1.5 billion to $289.7 billion year-to-date. Under its mortgage-related investments portfolio, the GSE completed $20 billion in purchases, $18 billion in sales, and $3 billion in liquidations. It saw an annualized growth rate of -6.2 percent for the month. Freddie Mac mortgage-related securities and mortgage loans made up the bulk of the portfolio, while non-agency and agency loans only comprised a small portion of it.

Mortgage-related securities and mortgage-related guarantees rose by an annualized rate of 2.1 percent, jumping from $1.76 trillion to $1.88 trillion since April last year. The portfolio has risen steadily since early 2016, even jumping 10 percent in December 2016.

More than 40 percent of Freddie’s total single-family mortgage portfolio for April consisted of refinance loans, and 9 percent of those were “relief refinance mortgages.” Just over half—56 percent—of the agency’s loans were purchase loans for the month. In total, Freddie Mac completed 4,588 single-family loan modifications in April and 16,587 year-to-date.

The rate of serious delinquency remained steady for both Freddie’s single-family and multi-family loans in April, coming in at 0.92 percent and 0.03 percent of the enterprise’s total loan volume respectively. On single-family loans, “seriously delinquent” refers to borrowers who are 90 or more days overdue; on multi-family loans, it is 60-plus days.

To view the full monthly summary, visit FreddieMac.com. [2]