""Freddie Mac"":http://www.freddiemac.com says it cut its total mortgage portfolio by an annualized rate of 5.2 percent in August. The GSE has been downsizing for most of this year. Only two months during the early part of 2010 saw increases in the company's portfolio size.
According to the GSE's just-released ""August monthly summary report"":http://www.freddiemac.com/news/archives/investors/2010/20100924_mvs.html, mortgage purchases and issuances tallied $29.1 billion last month. Single-family[IMAGE] [COLUMN_BREAK]
refinance-loan purchase and guarantee volume was $21.2 billion in August, reflecting 73 percent of total mortgage portfolio purchases and issuances.
However, total liquidations came to $38.5 billion. Freddie Mac's mortgage investment portfolio declined by $10.3 billion during the one-month period. The company's mortgage asset holdings totaled $715,670 as of the end of August. That's down from $779.4 billion a year earlier.
The GSE reported that its single-family delinquency rate decreased to 3.83 percent in August, down from 3.89 percent the month before. The multifamily delinquency rate, on the other hand, increased to 0.32 percent, up from 0.30 percent in July.
According to the report, there were 9,976 Freddie Mac loans modified in August. For the eight months ended August 31, 2010, the GSE has completed a total of 114,568 loan modifications.
Freddie is also employing refinancing as a means of putting homeowners into more sustainable mortgages. The GSE's refinancing volume jumped 17 percent between July and August.