Having fallen below its 2016 cap of $339.3 billion in March, Fannie Mae’s gross mortgage portfolio contracted further in both April and May, shrinking at an annual rate of 32.0 percent in May, according to Fannie Mae [1]'s May 2016 Monthly Volume Summary [2].
The 32 percent rate of contraction in May was more than double the rate of shrinkage in April (15.4 percent). With May’s contraction, the aggregate unpaid principal balance (UPB) of Fannie Mae’s gross mortgage portfolio was $317.65 billion at the end of the month—down by about $10.5 billion from April, according to Fannie Mae. The portfolio has declined at an annual rate of 18 percent over the first five months of 2016.
According to the June 2016 Chartbook from Urban Institute [3], “(The GSEs) are shrinking their less liquid assets (mortgage loans and non-agency MBS) at close to the same pace that they are shrinking their entire portfolio.” For Fannie Mae, the gross mortgage portfolio shrank year-over-year at the rate of 19 percent in April, compared to a 13.5 percent shrinkage rate in less liquid assets, Fannie Mae reported.
Fannie Mae's total book of business, which includes the gross mortgage portfolio plus total Fannie Mae mortgage-backed securities and other guarantees minus Fannie Mae MBS in the portfolio, increased at a compound annualized rate of 0.1 percent in May up to a value of about $3.100 trillion, according to Fannie Mae.
In January 2016, Fannie Mae’s gross mortgage portfolio experienced a rare expansion, increasing at an annual rate of 5 percent. With May’s contraction, the portfolio has now contracted in all but four months out of the last 70 months (since June 2010). The four months in which the portfolio expanded were January 2016, March 2015, January 2015, and December 2012. At the beginning of that stretch in June 2010, the amount of unpaid principal balance (UPB) of the loans in the portfolio was $818 billion.
Fannie Mae’s serious delinquency rate, or the share of loans backed by Fannie Mae that were seriously delinquent, declined by two basis points from April to May down to 1.38 percent. Fannie Mae completed 6,552 loan modifications in May, down from 7,097 in April.
Click here [4] to view the complete Monthly Volume Summary for May.
